Good questions Brady. I will only comment on what I have observed with my plants in my area because I haven't been doing this long enough to say what's right or wrong. Im defiantly still in the learning curve with my plants. With Rabbiteyes I think there are a few things to consider. I live right next to the gulf of mexico, with in 1 mile of Galveston Bay. Needless to say its very humid here in a normal year. Add a very wet spring on top of that and leaf fungus becomes a issue with the spring flush of growth. My limited experience with them has shown me they are more sensitive than SHB to really humid/rainy conditions when it comes to leaf fungus and premature leaf drop. I saw this last spring. In a dryer environment it's probably not a big deal? Can't say cause I don't live in a dry environment. Because of that I tend to prune to keep the center of the bush open which seemed to help with my fungus issue. Also some varieties of Rabbiteyes can get very tall and I'm not crazy about breaking out a ladder to pick fruit. What I've doin the past 2 years is after harvest I cut the fruiting canes back to about four feet. By the end of the season they are right back to 7ft or so when they stop growing. Perfect for picking I'm my mind. Now some varieties are more up right while some are more spreading so prune accordingly. Also in late winter I will do a light prune to thin fruit buds on the tips of branches. I dont know if I even need to do this as I obviously thin next years crop by topping back the plants at 4ft but I do it any way. I leave 5 to 6 fruit buds but I may really be shorting my self on fruit. Maybe some one can correct me here? I do know that berry size has not been a problem. They are very large so far. Chill hours have also been a concern for me here with Rabbiteyes. From looking at a chill hour chart for my area we only received 180 or so chill hours in 2011-2012. For some reason it didn't seem to effect any of my Rabbiteyes negatively. They all fruited and leafed out fine. This year I'm showing 250 or so chill hours so it should be a good year for them if the past holds true. All mine fall in the 300-450 chill requirement. Maybe excessive pruning is keeping them fruiting and growing???? I don't know,,,, I would think lack of chill hours would keep them from fruiting and leafing out but I haven't seen that yet??? SHB are a little different. Now keep in mind I'm growing all my SHB in pots with the exception of one Emerald. I can tell you this, the one Emerald in my raised bed is massive compared to my potted plants. It's actually wider, just as tall and much more impressive than my rabbiteyes! Now with SHB it's all about controlling crop load as a over producing plant can bring on unwanted disease. Stem blight is bad one that can kill a plant in a matter of months. How much fruit is too much??? Don't know and don't want to find out. I'm not in it to push a plant, I'm in it to feed my 3 boys home grown organic goodness! I have pretty much followed Fruitnuts and Bams advice on pruning them. Prune heavy after harvest and a light bud pruning in late Jan before the buds break to control crop load. I've gone with 5-6 fruit buds on all the major branches. All small thin branches or weak shoots that spout in the fall get pruned out in Jan. So far so good. I haven't had leaf fungus problems on them like the rabbiteyes, at least not yet. I do tend to prune with more of a open center though with SHB also just in case. Keep in mind I tend to over kill everything so take my post with a grain of salt. I try to be as proactive as possible rather than reactive and that's probably helped me more to this point than anything.

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

I have the warm climate blueberries from Bunnings too! I live in Mackay and mine are thriving!!! *Which means you should have no probs on the Goldie :D I water them twice a day, and give them a good misting in the morning and situate them on the eastern side of the house to get the morning sun. I've planted them in a large pot (wide and low to the ground) as I'm in a rental. So far so good!!! cant wait to get some yummy berries. Just got blackberries and raspberries too!!

A statue sounds nice. Do you have Michelia/Magnolia figos in Sydney? They have a delicious banana and vanilla scent. They are shrubs not trees and have nice evergreen leaves. Michelia/Magnolia alba can be kept smaller with pruning and it is my favorite scented plant of all time! Think lemon and gardenia. Strong and lovely but not cloying at all. I wish I could bottle it and sell it. I would be rich :) I keep mine in a pot. All the Michelia names have been changed to Magnolia somethings now but I still like to call them Michelias lol. Tea Olive is also a good scented plant that can be used formally. There is a yellow-er more fragrant tea olive variety called, Fudingzhu which is also supposed to flower much heavier. There is also an orange/reddish variety but I don't have that one. Nycanthes arbor-tristis aka Tree of Sorrow/Lover's Tree is a small jasmine-honey scented night blooming tree from India with a lovely legend to it. It drops its beautiful little flowers when the sun touches them in the morning. It is very drought tolerant once established. Also very easy to root. I think it would be lovely for a courtyard. Scented at night and cloudy days and lovely flowers cast about in the mornings. They are used around Buddist Temples.