Another avenue to Italian cultivar fruit trees is to graft your own. All types of fruit scion wood from Italian cultivars are available in USDA repositories available to the public. I was going through scions that I got in trade from California. One of the varieties I have for grafting this spring is called Pera Spadona di Solerno. Here is a link that might be useful: Pera Spadona di Solerno.

Hi- there is a short section on rejuvenating old apple and pear trees in the Cornell publication. It is not a 1-year process to rejuvenate, and it starts during the dormant season for the big cuts. I would remove anything at the base immediately. You should be able to cut all watersprouts in July/August still this year. Even after a couple winters of pruning you can expect heavy vegetative growth in following years. I have not done it, but you may not expect much fruit for 4+? years. If you start over again you can have fruit on apple and peach in a few years. I did not even try to rejuvenate, but cut down an old apple and instead planted 2 years ago and have good apple set this year. It gives you a chance to chose a site with the right sun, layout enough room, prepare the ground, amend per a soil test with phosphorus etc in the soil. Plus you can chose cultivars and rootstock size you want to work with. Peaches useful life is shorter (maybe 15 years in zone 5?), and Cornell does not have a section on rejuvenating peaches. Yours is part dead already and you may be better off cutting down the peach and replanting. Do not seal any pruning sites- just make sure you know how to thin out the entire branch by cutting cleanly right at the outside of the collar so it can heal. If you do not want to spray you may want to reconsider orcharding. Even if you get scab immune apples, you should know how much insect pressure you will need to control from your few years there. Other may comment if pears would be better to rejuvenate (since trees take longer to come into bearing) and not spray since pests are more manageable. The other sections in the Cornell pub may answer your questions too- good luck. Another pub on rejuvenating: http://extension.psu.edu/plants/gardening/fphg/pome/pruning/pruning-a-special-case-renovating-old-fruit-trees Good general discussion on pruning if you follow through the pages: http://extension.psu.edu/plants/gardening/fphg/pome/pruning Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell Guide to Growing Fruit at Home

Sylvia, The Fuyu persimmons you planted should start making fruit the second or third year after planting, granted you wont get many, but getting a few off your own tree is a great feeling. The trees do not have to be very big to make fruit.(4 to 5 feet high) With the first time fruiting you will get drops, this is normal as the tree adjusts to it's new home. Like you I have a local 'you pick' place to go, around a mile away, and pick different fruit from his trees. I pick up an empty basket when I go in, wander around his trees and pick what I like. He weighs the full basket on the way out and pay by the pound. I ride my electric bicycle to go pick fruit and I get exercise from pedaling because he is close. If I'm tired I can use the electric motor to come home. Slowly I'm putting in my own trees for an orchard here, I have plenty of room for it on ten acres. I can't wait until my trees start making different fruits. I'm trying different apricots to see if one variety will like Florida. If one type is good then I can graft it to the other apricot trees. The unfruitful trees are not wasted if you know how to graft when you do the yearly pruning. I also 'teased' a M111 root to make new roots & suckers I can separate for new apple trees to graft on to. I love to experiment. Lou

Hi Cori, Thanks for the tip on the pollinator. I usually get somewhere between 500-600 chill hours in S. San Jose, sometimes more depending on the year. I've never had any troubles getting my Baby Crawford peach trees to produce fruit in my backyard, even though the stated chill hour requirement is 800 hrs. I'm sure having the other peach varieties helps with pollination quite a bit. With respect to chill hours, the only fruit variety which I think really DOES need the rated chill hours (or more) are cherries. Most of the other stone fruits, like peaches, apricots, plums, etc, if you're in the ballpark of the necessary chill hours, they'll produce fruit. My experience is the chill hour requirement is a rough gauge, not a hard and fast rule, but others may have experienced something different. The BC blossoms are pinkish-white, definitely not the deep red of Red Baron. You can get easily get BC from a lot of places - Peaceful Valley Farm, Bay Laurel, etc. I have loamy clay soil in my backyard and Citation tends to do well for me with this soil, which is the predominant peach rootstock I have (some are on Nemaguard). Baby Crawford does naturally tend to produce a somewhat smaller tree, so if I had to do it over again, I would have gotten the BC peach trees on Nemaguard, but I'm happy with what I have. Getting the Cal Red peach tree is another matter all together. I've been trying to get a Cal Red peach tree for at least the last 5-6 years. To my knowledge, it's only grown by Burchell Nursery and has historically only been available to commercial orchards. The Cal Red is listed on Tomorrow's Harvest website, which I believe is the retail arm of Burchell, but the tree is not in stock - they did not produce any trees last year, and may not produce any for the foreseeable future (I've inquired and I keep checking every year - lol). https://www.tomorrowsharvest.com/store/fruit-trees/peach-freestone.html