BB, I have 360 degree spinning heads that stick up out of the ground maybe 8 inches and spray water up and out and hit the plants maybe 18" up max and cover 6 feet in all directions. I have never had fungus problems from it at all and on all but the young plants it hits just the canes and not the leaves as I prune my plants up. Not to say I have never had fungus issues as the plants in Florida always get fungused leaves toward Nov-Dec anyway. No mold ever....do get dog vomit mold but that is a different organism and is harmless. The commercial folks use over head sprinklers to water with and do wet the entire canopy so it can't be much of an issue. We do get a lot of rain as well and I am sure that wets the leaves:) This morning the water ran from 3 am to 10 am when the ice finally started to melt. The odds of us getting 28 degrees or under after February 3 is less than 20%.......but happens. In a normal year the plants would just now be starting to swell the buds.

Below 45 model: 566 Between 45 and 32 model: 545 Utah model: 522 And, you can probably add about 20 more ch to my equation, as I was late in getting my weather station up and online. Carolyn is describing my situation exactly. My pluots are very late to blossom. All pears are still dormant, but I do finally see a couple of leaves starting to push out this week on a couple of my earlier pears. My Peacotum has only now pushed out 2 blossoms. But, good new for my Minnie Royal and Royal Lee, they are better synced, just took two weeks for the Minnie Royal to really open up the blossoms, and some of the earliest Royal Lee blossoms are turning into little cherries. So, I should have my first decent crop of Minnie Royal/Royal Lee cherries this year. I will be building a netting cage for both of them this year, and am taking extensive measures to keep snails out of my trees this year. They were worse than the birds for ruining my stone fruit. I also had quite a few blossoms on both my pleurries I planted in January, but the danged Burgundy plum was much slower to wake up, so no significant cross pollination occurred, so highly unlikely I'll get any pleurries this year, so disappointed. They are interesting looking trees, though. the leaves are very unique. Patty S.

Well, for us here in the coastal N. San Diego county areas, we always seem better off with low chill varieties: Anna is our #1 apple. It is crazy good here. Bears two crops frequently - one big, one very tiny. Another huge producer of delicious apples is Dorsett Golden, the best pollenizer for Anna, although it doesn't need a pollenizer unless you want fatter (and more prolific) apples. And Einshemer, although some folks like to give this apple a bad rap, it is really delicious here. Those 3 are the top contenders for my zone 10/Sunset 23 to 24, which has just about the lowest chill hours around. Especially right at the coast (I'm a wee bit inland by about 6-7 miles). Oh, and Beverly Hills, which is another reliable producer for our area and very good tasting apple. Next would be the Fuji's - regular Fuji and Red Fuji - Pink Lady, and Gala. The Fuji's and Pink Lady should perform for me fairly well since I get more chill hours than my more coastal Oceanside and Carlsbad neighbors, plus I have them in a cold spot in my yard. Especially Pink Lady. This area can easily be 10 to 15 degrees colder than the top of my yard. It's bizarre - like walking into a cooler. Which is exactly where I planted my apples and stone fruit. Didn't have room for more than my Fuji's, Pink Lady, Anna and Dorsett Golden. Beyond those, it can get a bit iffy. And, I just don't have the room to experiment with other varieties, plus I'm a big old softie, and find it really hard to shovel-prune anything that isn't performing up to decent standards. So, I took the easy route and planted safe bets :-) Probably my riskiest apple tree is the Red Fuji, but so far, it is leafing out nicely, ahead of the Fuji, actually, and it supposedly requires a few more chill hours than its plainer cousin. Since all my trees are new this year, I'll have to wait until next season to report. I CAN report, however, much to my dread, the rats or ground squirrels have found my trees :-( I lost one Anna apple, and have a few bite marks in others. I'm going to have to put bags on after all. Ugh. And put up two more bait stations. Honest to goodness. You'd think I'm infested. Which I probably am. Very, very frustrating. I'm going to have to figure out how to completely cage in my blackberries, too, or I'll not get any blackberries this season either. Same with the blueberries, but I think that might be easier since they don't sprawl like the blackberries do. Patty S.

Does anyone know of any re-blooming lilacs that can thrive in warm zones and do not need a strong chill effect in winter? I already grow some non-reblooming lilacs. Do you know of any rebloomers I could try? Are there any rebloomers amongst the Descanso Hybrids? TIA, Luis