Peaches bear on last year's wood, every year you will need to prune it to head that wood back and to remove old wood to make room for new. Pruning that one for size won't be any additional work. But it may be easier to do all the pruning on the peach if it's not 15'. The pear will bear on long lived spurs so it will require very little pruning (if it's well behaved) once it's trained and probably reach larger than expected if you don't do size pruning. So you can only consider "to prune or not to prune" with the pear, and even then you're going to have damage control and thinning of some branches required. I've seen companies that were right on the money with their estimates and I've seen companies that greatly underestimate their sizes. I have never seen a company predict a huge size and hand out dwarf sizes. My rule of thumb is that if it's going to be other than claimed it will err to the large side. I've seen trees bought as dwarfs that dwarf my accurately sized semi-dwarf apple that's pushing 20 years with very little pruning later in life. I'd go dwarf for both. If you flipped the planting spaces around I may change to semi-dwarf for the pear just to get more fruit. But I wouldn't want to be climbing 15' to head back branches or be thinning out old 15' branches.

Thank you both for your responses (even though I'm a year late in acknowledging yours, Akimbo!). Homey bird, the total space in the yard is about 14' x 28', and 10' x 14' of that is taken up with a concrete patio. The house is a 2-story pueblo-ish style (flat roof, stucco), and the yard is surrounded by a 5' high block wall. I decided to play up all that geometry a little bit, so I put in a central bed that's a diamond with concave sides (this house need curves somewhere!) and surrounded it with 4 beds that are convex arches. A 4' x 14' rectangular bed runs along one side of the patio. It's more or less a potager or kitchen garden--I have garden vegetables in a micro-intensive box unit and in various containers on the patio, the central bed is an herb bed, and I've filled the others with things like currants and sand cherries that will feed either me or the birds that are doing such a nice job of keeping the insect pests down. I've planted some flowers that attract beneficial insects, and some that I just like. I also have 3 small trees that will eventually help filter out some of that New Mexico sunshine. What seems to work with that number of beds is to have one large thing in each and to fill in the rest with ground cover or subtle texture plants--just like you suggested, Akimbo. The ones that I've tried to make look like traditional borders are waaaay too cluttered looking. I think if I had divided the space into fewer, larger beds--maybe one continuous, irregularly shaped bed around the perimeter--that fussiness/clutter would be less of an issue. I like what you're saying about scale, homey bird. Maybe that's what I'm trying to pinpoint--how to choose plants that work with the total size of the space but also with the way the space is divided. Thanks again for your ideas, both of you!

RE: Ford vs Dodge full size pickups Posted by: earthworm (My Page) on Mon, May 30, 05 at 12:29 """ But the true reason for the Diesel is economy - 20 to 30 % greater MPG""" $5,000 extra is also for a true heavy duty truck engine. But this high price should become more reasonable down the road...Volkswagen charges about $1,000 more - this pays off in 3 to 5 years - and is good for those who drive over 20,000 miles per year.. Gary, as far as the extra oil goes - 2 or 3 times is, IMO, an exaggeration.. 20 to 40% more is closer.. 2005 and still no "light duty" Diesel made in America - a disgrace !! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another EARTHWORM-ISM ! The main reason for buying a Diesel is "FUEL ECONOMY" ?? Most people I know,myself included, Bought thier trucks with the Diesel option for PULLING POWER,ie TOWING. Fuel economy was even a consideration. And as far as the amount of oil, Gary is pretty close to right on. He IS NOT referring to a V.W. , as you always do, or a Slaab, oops I mean Saab.

I don't think there is any reason for resale to have three ovens in total. As to whether to get a double oven versus single oven with steam oven: For us, keeping two regular ovens was the best decision. We only use both ovens every couple months, but when we do it is for holidays (where platters can be big) or where my husband is cooking some big roast while I want to bake. In both of those situations, the steam oven would have been a compromise (because it wouldn't fit my full size cookie sheets, or would have required recipe adjustments, just by way of example). And the steamoven upsides didn't add much value for us: faster cooking of things like frozen pizzas or lasagna in lieu of nuking in the microwave. And the steam oven didn't take up significantly less space than a second regular oven. I'd do a lot of reading on here and the appliance forum about what people actually use their steam ovens for. People love them, but I found that the things they used them for didn't match our cooking style at all.