Ashley (just sent you an email), We only live a couple hours apart and we see the same trees at big box and nurseries. You're probably seeing "ultra" on the Pacific Groves trees, right? Some are in bags (bareroot) at various places and some in the fiberpot containers (Lowes). If so, you can drop the term "ultra" and just consider it dwarf. Dwarf and semi-dwarf are what you're aware of: "regular trees on lower vigor rootstocks". These are prolific at nurseries and big box stores alike. Genetic dwarf, aka Miniatures or "true dwarf" are more rare, they are "dwarf trees on whatever (typically regular sized) rootstock". I think you already understand stocks especially how dwarf stocks ideally encourage fruit at younger age (early bearing) and retain a heavier fruit set (precocious). Each stock is different in various properties like size reduction, early bearing, preciousness, disease resistance, soil tolerance, and so forth. The rootstock is *mostly* what makes dwarf and semi-dwarf so small -- the lower vigor. The scion of certain varieties can be somewhat dwarfing and so can their tolerance of summer pruning. It ALL depends on variety, rootstock, and growing conditions. Thus why I've spent countless hours researching the various stocks and varieties before I go buying and planting gobs of them in my yard. Take the Babcock peach, very common. It can be grafted onto Lovell as full sized, on Citation is considered semi-dwarf, on Pumiselect called dwarf (PG calls it Ultra) but Babcock will never be a miniature (genetic dwarf). Just as Necta-Zee (another newer genetic dwarf) will never be a semi-dwarf or full sized tree. The mini's are very small, though their size differs based on variety, but many are 3 feet tall (unpruned) after 2 years old in the ground, whereas the PG ultra-dwarf could be like 6 feet by then. LE Cooke (near Visalia) also produces miniature trees, but I'm not sure the volume since I've only found a couple local nurseries that have ever had any -- and those nurseries don't plan to stock them anymore. The folks at LE Cooke have not responded to my inquiries. Nevertheless, they have an awesome website with cool photos of their genetic dwarfs. Here is a link that might be useful: Take a look at LE Cooke's Site

Not sure what you mean by a hassle to post? Nothing has changed with posting a message to the GW since I've been a member, except a few nice added features, like being able to post a photo from your hard drive (just wish we could post multiple photos, so for that you have to still use Photobucket and copy and paste in the html code). And, another nice feature is you can opt to follow ANY message thread now, not just the ones you create. As far as posting though, it's always been this way. And you can water your cherries, just make sure you evenly water them. All my stone fruit are on a drip system and get regular watering amounts. As weather warms, I do not adjust my watering practices until after I've harvested the crop, to keep the fruit sweet. A little water starvation will keep fruit sweeter and less watery. Once everything has been harvested, I turn up the water, fertilize and watch for any additional pest issues. Your Minnie Royal and Royal Lee will continue to increase their production for you as the years progress. This was my second year in the ground and I just had a handful of cherries, too. Hope for much more next season. They were excellent. Patty S.

Matthew Søberg Shugart grew cherries right next to grapefruit. found this in a blog: " [...] right now it is cherry season again, with the ‘Stella’ currently at its peak. Yes, you can grow cherries in San Diego County, and not only at higher elevations. I believe the tree in the photo is the ‘Royal Rainier.’ ‘Stella’ has fruited three or four times for us in the approximately seven years that I have had it–first in Carlsbad and now at Ladera Frutal and ‘Royal Rainier’ has fruited just the one time in the four years it has grown here at the finca. In 2007, Stella fruits all by herself, despite the fact that Royal Rainier also bloomed well and, for the first time, ‘Craig’s Crimson’ and even ‘Bing’ bloomed. Bing appeared to set a couple of fruits, but they do not seem to have developed–pollination failure, most likely. [...] Cherries are not easy to grow here, but they are worth the trouble. Stella is certainly less delicious than Royal Rainier, but it is quite good (and better than most cherries you can buy around here in markets, even farmers markets)." Readers should keep in mind that back around when this blog post was written, low-chill cherry options were a lot more limited than they are now. I have done a lot of research, and the cherry varieties that perform best in Southern California are Royal Lee / Royal Minnie Lee, and Lapins. There are also Capulin cherries, but these are not in the same species as sweet cherries and have inferior taste. Short bit of information: Capulin is actually more closely related to Black Cherry, Native to the mountains of Mexico, it has a very low chill requirement, and seems to be very productive even in San Diego. They taste sweet but many people find the flavor a little resinous or pea-like. To me the flavor seems more reminiscent of Black cherry, which is to say it is a bit lacking in distinctive "cherry" flavor, and has more of a murky plum-like taste; definitely inferior flavor to other cherry varieties, but not entirely terrible. Capulin is not extremely hard to find, 2 years ago I saw one in the garden department of Home Depot.

I don't spray for PLC, just pick the leaves off as I see them and dispose of. Easy to do unless you have an orchard full of peach/nec trees. We're having a nice wet spring so more PLC this year (judging by your sweatshirts you are in San Jose too :) ). PLC doesn't effect the fruit but if the fungus takes all your leaves it can hurt the growth of the tree. I know people with mature peach trees who just let the curl happen and still get excellent fruit every year.