I was wondering if the soil could be too rich for a fruit tree but I have a tangerine doing well in front with roses all around. I thought I would try a peach in back because I needed the afternoon shade for the roses and liked the fact that it would drop the leaves in winter when the roses need more light. I'll be sure to keep the mulch away from the trunk and since the roses are established, maybe I can water a little less to keep the tree from growing so fast. (didn't expect it to grow as fast as it did these first years!)

I call it rich. Really good nectarines have the richest flavor of anything I grow. Have you tried any of the Honey series nectarines? I like Honey May, Honey Fire, Honey Blaze, Honey Royale, and Honey Diva. Have a couple more new ones planted this year. Honey Royale is my top fruit. Really rich at anything above 18 brix. I'd rate the yellow fleshed, low acid Honey series as better than the white flesh Arctic series. But Arctic are good. DWN is still hanging onto the Honey series for commercial use. Honey Kist can be special ordered. ACN sells Honey Royale and Honey Blaze but probably won't ship to CA. This post was edited by fruitnut on Mon, Mar 31, 14 at 23:39

If it were my tree I would not have pruned it so hard. I definitely would have left some of the upper branches as scaffolds to start with. But, since time can't be turned back, what I would do now is to remove a small piece of bark above spots where there are living buds. In your third photo just below the lower branch it looks like there is a small bud forming right there. About a quarter of an inch above that stubbed off branch, remove a sliver of just wider than the branch socket and deep enough to remove the cambium layer. The sliver of bark doesn't need to be very wide, just enough interrupt the flow of sap up from the bud area. That will stimulate the bud to act more like an apex bud and to grow. It worked really well with a couple buds on young trees this year for me that didn't seem like they were going to push growth out of areas I wanted growth to start scaffolds from.

So funny...I am the one who started this thread back in 2004 (and we shortly thereafter moved to Colorado). We moved back to So Cal last September, and just now moved into a home on a huge horse ranch in San Timoteo Canyon. Our yard is a blank slate (except for having mature pepper and birch trees)...no grass, so I am on the lookout for anything drought tolerant and rabbit proof. I don't have a lot to trade at this point, as I am starting all over, but I do have some seeds and can get my hands on some great succulents (as my mom and dad's succulent garden is always in need of trimming). And if anyone is in Redlands or thereabouts, let's see about having some get togethers to do some trading!