Lapins, Royal Ann, and Brooks are really more "semi-low-chill" cherry varieties than true low-chill. They can fruit in zone 10a, but typically produce fruit every other year (or the fruiting is not consistent, there may be some years without fruit) and do not fruit as profusely. In a warm climate, it can also take a few years longer until a young cherry tree begins producing fruit. With something like Royal Ann, you might see just 3 cherries set fruit in the fourth year after planting, it will be 2 more years until you see anything significant. This may not be suitable to every home grower but there does exist some special chemical treatment strategies for cherry trees that can be applied to try to partially compensate for the inadequate chill. A 200ppm solution of gibberellic acid, sprayed onto the bark of a cherry seedling can help bring it out of dormancy. The gibberellic acid has to be continually reapplied, and should not exceed this concentration (otherwise the plant may stay in dormancy, strangely). In my experience, the treatment is a lot more effective if applied into a cut or break in one of the main branches. The initial first shoots that appear may send out deformed leaves, but the appearance of this first growth will help stimulate a second wave of buds to break a few weeks later, which will produce normal leaves. There is another rest-breaking chemical, Thidiazuron (TDZ), that can be used in conjunction with gibberellic acid (although it is even more expensive). From what I have read, TDZ is most effective when applied BEFORE the plant experiences chill, and reduces the necessary subsequent chill requirement. Both of these chemicals are fairly expensive, so the small quantities need to be applied with care to the tree to maximize their effectiveness. One of the main ways to try to counteract lack of chill hours in warm climates is to try to minimize as much as possible the higher temperatures on warm winter days, because these can seriously detract from winter chill accumulation. In other words, it may not be so much about making sure the plant receives chill, but rather preventing the plant from experiencing warm temperatures when it is in dormancy. You can do this by providing partial shade, or in drier climates misting the leaves during a particularly warm winter day.

Hi - guess I've been holding out - but inspite of 5 days of almost constant rain and flooding, the veggies are thriving in my back yard. We are still on the established every-other-day water rationing schedule, but guess that is one chore I won't have to worry about - maybe for at least a month or more. The ground is saturated, but cutting lots of lettuces, Chinese cabbage, bok choy, bibb and romaine types. Earlier - the end of summer - we had so much cold weather, that I thought the peppers would surely die before they turned red - but with patience - they survived and managed to get enough warmth in Oct/Nov to do so - and are still hanging on for daily picks. The mandarin orange tree is loaded - as usual, with many harvest for the freezer, and a Christmas dish of mandarin, pineapple, fruit cocktail and whipped cream is planned. The banana tree looks a bit forlorn, but holding up strong against the south facing concrete block wall, and maybe I will enjoy some fruit this year. It has sprouted 2 or 3 pups and maybe I can find room to start a plantation (perish the thought), although have very little gardening space left. According to the locals - the beach was only habitable for 2 days this summer - although our usual influx of "zonies" (Arizona summer birds) were only too happy to visit and find respite from their unbearable summers. They bought lots of warm weather jackets to withstand the beach chill tho. Some seedlings of cabbage and broccoli are still in their cups, being hardened off, waiting for the floods to recede, and hopefully some warmer weather. The fruit trees are sadly in need of dormant spraying, but just like last year, the rains kept coming and they didn't get it. Funny thing, we had a bumper crop of apricots, peach, almonds, plums, etc., last year. Stay dry and if you come to Ca., bring your water wings! Bejay

It looks like some varieties of red maple might work well. There appear to be varieties that are perfectly happy in florida, which have no chill requirements to break dormancy. Sugar maples, however probably wouldn't do particularly well. One article I found states that they require 2500 continuous hours of chill (below 41f) to break dormancy. Without that chill, they'd probably do well enough for a couple years, but eventually would either go dormant and not come out of it, or they'd just die from the stress of not being able to rest. Here is a link that might be useful: Top of page 3 references the lack of chill requirement for floridian acer rubrum

Yes, Ingrid - San Diego has been built up more recently. You are doing a great job preserving and planting your property - eventually it will be "old", and people will fing YOUR roses! I do know there are some old neighborhoods in LA, as I have seen them. Meanwhile, here is a list of the roses I have "rustled" in my old neighborhood, and one nearby park. I will see how many pics I can do in one comment, and put the rest in other comments. One thought - if you find roses where an actual cultivar has been surviving for decades, that means that it has not been cloned zillions of times, and has not "declined in commerce" as some roses have. You get one way closer to the original. MADAME CAROLINE TESTOUT: 1890 HT, repeats. When we moved in here, I could see this rose out of my kitchen window, climbing up a tree in the back of a house (built in 1910) 2 doors down from mine. The house was empty for 5 years, but eventually a couple bought it. I went over there to say Hi quite promptly, and was delighted to see a lady unloading 20+ pots of roses out of a truck! I asked her about the rose in the back yard, and she did not know it was there - it turned out that the base of that rose was buried in a gigantic blackberry bush. Another day I helped her get rid of the blackberries, and it turned out that there were 2 bushes of MCT underneath them. FORTUNE'S DOUBLE YELLOW: hybrid gigantea, discovered in China by Robert Fortune in 1844. Once bloomer. We got this rose from a cutting I took from a huge one which was growing over 4 trees in a little park nearby. We ran into the head of the DPW for the tiny town, and he said he had planted it, from a cutting he took from a plant in the back of one of the old estates in that town. SCHMIDT'S SMOOTH YELLOW: mystery polyantha. Repeats frequently. Best guesses are either 'Eugneie Lamesch', 1898, or 'George Elger', 1912. Repeats, and is COPLETELY thornless. I found it in the front yard of a 1930s cottage 4 blocks from my house which was empty, and about to be torn down. CRIMSON GLORY, 1935 HT, repeats. Fabulous, velvety red blooms, and amazingly strong "old rose" fragrance. I found this growing up a tree in the same garden in front of the same cottage where I got "Schmidt's Smooth Yellow" above. I will post these now, and put more in further comments. Jackie