Follow Up Question: It seems apricots and plums are more sensitive than pears & apples, but not as sensitive as cherries. Right in between, does that sound right? As of now, all the trees in question are recently purchased (young) in 10gallon containers. I have a Blenheim Apricot and a Weeping Santa Rosa Plum that are NOT doing well with full exposure to our afternoon sun (it's only 80'ish here right now). All the young shoots and leaves wilt very easily, even after watering. The leaves on woody branches are doing OK (which I think proves it's not over/under watered). However, the cherries certainly are having a more difficult time already, even tho in filtered sun. The pears are doing just fine in full sun -- apples are OK too, but showing edge curling on some leaves, not worried yet. BTW I haven't put up shade cloth yet. I do mulch and paint the trunks -- previously nothing helped for 100+ weather on young trees until the shade cloth. Once *well* established (i.e. over a year in-ground), the citrus and peaches/nectarines did fine with an acceptable amount of leaf loss from scorching without any shade cloth.

I bought one called "EasyBloom" from the big orange box online, mostly on a lark as far as I was concerned because my wife wanted it. She's something of a gadget hound. :-) It measures soil moisture, sunlight, temperature, and humidity then you plug it into your computer and it graphs it. It's also supposed to give recommendations based on your readings and planting zone but I haven't really looked into them. You're also supposed to be able to "diagnose" a plant. I used it on the north side of our house that gets a little morning sun and a little late afternoon sun. It reported that it the location had moist soil, was partial shade, the average day temperature was 75°, the average night temperature was 68° and it was moderately humid. For the heck of it, I tested it's diagnostic ability on a fittonia that was floppy because my wife had over watered it. I put it in the pot, took it out 24 hours later, plugged it in and it told me that "Your red nerve plant is too wet" but the sun and temperature was just right. It actually seems to work pretty well overall. I went to Amazon and read their reviews before I ordered it because it wasn't what I would call cheap. The main gripes were a lack of Mac compatibility at the time and someone thought it would analyze the soil needs, nutrients, ph, etc. It's kind of neat and would be nice for someone unsure of or just starting in gardening. I have a couple of spots in back where we have all our trees that I'll probably try it once they finish leafing out. Here are screenshots of some of the readings: If they could add a Ph meter to it, they would have a great product but they'd have to redesign it.

Hi Twiggythefiggy, it usually takes a few weeks to assimilate to the sun. Some folks learn the hard way by putting in sun and they may seem fine until a few days past then all of a sun the burn spots appear and they will eventually all fall or the leaves wilt within a hour or so when first put in sun and stress the plant. Its best to keep in shade then little by little each day put in semi shade with part sun for an hour or two then back in shade, try to do this each day eventually you can put in sun longer and then all the time. What i like to do is give them morning sun for a couple hours im an early riser then back in shade as they progress i give morning sun and late evening sun and eventual full sun. You will be able to tell when there ready for sun but if you see leaves wilt put back in shade as soon as possible either way and by morning the leaves will be erect again from overnight. Martin

What you have is "Filtered" sunlight, which is fine for now, but as your plants get older like the one on the left, you will want to get them out into full sun as much as possible unless your temps are constantly in the upper 90's or hotter, then the filtered sun would be better. It probably isn't filtered a whole lot through screen but still full sun is better and getting them outside will likely allow longer direct sun than 6 hours per day. That being said, they will still probably grow and produce where they are at. Bruce