I don't generally remove scaffold branches of the first tier- they should be permanent, but in a central leader tree with 2 or three tiers, higher branches eventually outgrow lower ones and when they become of too large a diameter to be efficiently fruitful in their space they should be replaced. Merely cutting them back so they don't shade lower scaffolds creates mostly more leaves and wood instead of fruit on oversized branches. I leave small replacement branches a year or two before removing an oversized branch to take its place so it is a continuous cycling in and out of wood. This is one reason an open center tree is less complicated to maintain but once you understand how to do it neither method is very difficult. The problem is that this cycling seems never to be explained in the literature. Lower scaffolds would be removed if you deliberately or mistakenly started with a surplus. Some varieties, including Honeycrisp, are reluctant producers of secondary wood, so it may be a logical choice to begin with extra scaffolds. There is no one way and leaving extra branches can also discourage secondary branching.

I pretty much garden according to the 1/3, 2/3 rule that you cite, although I've never counted up the plants on both sides. LOL. My zone is so much colder that I don't know if I can give you enough specifics to be helpful for you. My garden goal has always been to get the absolute most out of my rather short growing season. I aim for a seven month garden starting about mid-March and going to mid-October (that probably seems pretty short to you in zone 8, but it is really stretching the season here). I also try to keep the long dreary winter months from being too stark as well, setting up a couple of spots of sedum, grasses, & evergreens that I can see from my windows during winter. I think I have accomplished my goal quite well, with a well-balanced garden that looks quite lovely through seven months and often beyond. Books that have been helpful to me include Ann Lovejoy's The American Mixed Border: Gardens for All Seasons (and many of her other books as well) and Pamela Harper's Designing with Perennials. Both of these author's are from warmer climates so you would be able to use a lot more of their plant selections in your garden design than I can. I rely heavily on the mixed shrub border approach. My season starts with as many bulbs as I can squeeze in (in specially created spaces) on my inhospitable soil (very dense wet clay) and a nice variety of spring blooming shrubs. I also use a small variety of spring &/or woodland ephemerals, such as Virginia Bluebells & Bleeding Hearts. The main spring perennial that I use with bulbs is Sweet Kate Tradescantia (spiderwort) for its chartreuse color. These are followed by a few bearded Iris and lots of Siberian Iris (long lasting spiky foliage) and Lady's Mantle (wonderful spring chartreuse flowers and interesting all season foliage). I also have a small raised gravel garden with spring alpine and various small trailing plants and a small woodland type garden with May Apples, trilliums, gingers, foam flowers, shooting stars, lots of minor bulbs, and columbines, which are later overtaken by large hostas. Evergreen shrubs are quite limited here in zone 5 compared to what you have available to you in zone 8, but I use what I can of them in my small yard, varying colors from dark & light greens, mixing shiny and dull textures, and addding spots of golds & blues. I also fill in with shrub size perennial grasses which stay up through the winter. I also try to use only shrubs that have multiple seasons of interest (one exception is Miss Kim Lilac). I'm talking about shrubs that have spring blooms and good fall color or berries, such as viburnums & aronias. I also use quite a few summer blooming shrubs as well, such as Itea (glorious long-lasting fall color) and Clethra (sweet flowers and likes wet soil), as well as Cotinus and Physocarpus with all-season lovely colored foliage. I garden on a rather small scale, a small suburban lot with more house than yard, but I use all sorts of perennials (my Excel chart lists around 275 individual types of plants, not counting 125 daylilies, 25 clematis & 50 hosta). Most are in the bays between shrubs and around and in front of them as well, along with two beds that are primarly perennial, with just a shrub or two. With this many plants in such a small amount of space, you can imagine that my garden is very heavily layered and that I depend on spring ephemerals to fade away to make room for bulging summer plants & that I cut back many perennials and shrubs quickly and heavily to show off the plants that are just coming on. I rely heavily on plants with a long season such as coreopsis, sedums, catmints & grasses and have a long list of late blooming plants (see my recent postings to the strings on fall plants for some of them). I still have rebloom on some phloxes (5 varieties, all blooming at slightly different times), catmints, sedums, some clematis & a couple of daylilies, along with one helianthus (First Light) which has not yet bloomed. Sweet Caroline Hibiscus moscheutos is still in bloom (started in August) and most of my grasses are in bloom with the exception of Miscanthus sinensis Strictus, which sometimes doesn't make it to bloom before hard frost, but is colorful enough by itself, as is the tiny Sedum sieboldii (October Daphne) which seldom blooms for me either (only in long warm falls). In summer the garden is mostly full of daylilies of every color size and shape. My daughter says it looks like Disneyland then. A wee bit overdone, I think, but I love it. The late bloomers take over next, accompanied by things that never quit like Rozanne geranium and Knockout Roses. I cheat a bit too on the daylilies that start looking shabby late in the season, by planting a big, always good looking, Baptisia in the center front of the main daylily bed. That, with a couple nice container plants and two large Sweet Autumn Clems in their full glory along the nearby fence, blinds you to any garden messes. P.S. If you are interested in pictures, please check my postings &/or homepage. Best of luck to you. Leslie

I would so love to post pictures, but frankly get lost at the terminology in the directions. someday the lightbulb will go on, I hope. meanwhile, the wallpaper is actually the nicest I've seen in an rv, thank goodness. a white and off white riff on fleur di lis is the closest I can describe it. the pattern is pretty large, the repeat is at least 4 inches, luckily it's very subtle and I quite like it. floors are light beige carpet---for now, anyway. the windows do have day/night honeycomb shades and the panels are for framing each side of the window, and to hide the holes i'll create when I remove the lambrequins. the large windows are 21inches apart from one another, and I can keep that space empty----though I am visualizing the poppy panels on the kitchen side hanging next to the solid panels on the living room side in that space. the cabs will not be in that 21" space, only under the windows, so visually there will be a break with panels hanging directly to the floor there. I want to order the valances and panels for the kitchen side today, and live with them before I order enough for the living room side, but if the dye lot is different i'll be sorry I waited--or is that overthinking it? also on that website there are a few other materials which would coordinate nicely with the poppy pattern, I'll probably use those if I don't use the poppy in the entire space.

Sinks under windows are a holdover from when all dishes were washed by hand - before DWs! Now, the Prep Zone counterspace is usually the "thing" that makes the most sense to go under the window! +++++++++ While it's not a rule, I put my trash pullout in the Cleanup Zone instead of the Prep Zone - and I regret it every single day! If only I could do it over.... I have only about 48" b/w my peninsula overhang and the DR table if I center the DR table under the chandelier - another regret. It was supposed to be more, but we forgot to move the chandelier in the DR to accommodate the new location! It's only an issue when someone is sitting in both locations, but that's often enough, especially when we have guests. Finally, I actually followed a rule - minimum of 15" clear leg/knee space for the seating overhang - and it's still too shallow! I wish we had done 18"! My DS never sits there (he uses the DR table instead) and my DH only uses it for breakfast - and that's only b/c we moved the TV and that's the only place he can see it while eating breakfast. He has to straddle the cabinets and lean over to reach the counter. (Yup! I'll go to any lengths to get my DH to sit there! ) My DD and I sit there, but my knees do hit the back of the cabinets (but just barely).