I wouldn't want to assume you don't have enough chilling hours, so I checked the UCD chilling hour website, and unfortunately, San Francisco isn't one of the counties. http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/chillcalc/index1.htm But even Union City has over 500 chill hours, so I wouldn't agree it would be "impossible" for you to get fruit. I have one northern blueberry, Elizabeth, and it is a little behind the rest of the blueberries, having buds just swelling while the southerns have had blossoms for a couple of weeks. I think you'll have to report back in August to tell us if you got fruit or not! Carla in Sac

I don't know how Methely performs outside my area but there is absolutely no doubt, from my experience at maybe 25 different sites, that it is extremely susceptible to black knot and more so than any of the other 20-25 varieties of plums I grow at multiple sites. It is, nevertheless, a useful plum here except at the worst sites for this disease. Just expect to have to do a lot of cutting out of black knot and maybe replace the tree after about 10 years (if your site is bad for it). Also, ask any of those commercial growers what is their most difficult apple to grow and I suspect the answer will be Honeycrisp. I have spoken about it to the Crop Production System"s main consultant to commercial growers in the Hudson Valley. He call's Honeycrisp twice as difficult to grow as any other major apple but worth it because of the high price per bin it receives from distributors. This year at mine and two other sites where I grow it on 6 different trees and three different rootstocks, 90% of the crop rotted before it achieved decent quality. I am not providing calcium sprays (as commercial growers do) and there may be something I haven't pinpointed that I'm doing wrong, but no other apple I grow gives me so much trouble. These trees performed well before they reached full maturity with well established root systems. Scott, I made a mistake when I wrote Queen Rosa, I was actually talking about Ruby Queen, although I do manage a small QR as well, which has excellent fruit but may also have the same reliability issues as Santa Rosa and here, the same susceptibility to cold related cambium damage. I will correct my initial statement to say that I consider Ruby Queen to be an excellent and easy to grow J. plum and the best late season J. plum I grow if you factor in overall performance including resistance to bacterial spot. It was also bred for the south and seems to be highly regarded for both quality and reliability there. People that want an extremely sweet plum may be disappointed with it, though. I sometimes wonder if your evaluations also include input from other friends. I am certainly influenced by the opinions of my customers and friends of fruit from their own trees and what I supply them to sample. I have customers who believe their own Methely trees produce the best plums in the world (maybe not the ones who've sampled a wide variety of other plums, though). It appears that Satsuma is going to require at least annual sprays of copper here to help limit bacterial spot. This is not an issue with more common east coast plums I grow here- at least at most sites. My main tree was healthy for the first 4 years but has gotten increasingly infected in the last 2.

Hardy banana, Musa basjoo, will grow in zones 5 and above but is a fully herbaceous perennial (dies back to the roots in winter) in colder zones. In mild winter zones, these can maintain some height as a tree and in very mild zones (9 and above), they are nearly fully evergreen. They do produce fruit but it is small, green and inedible. You need at least a very mild z8 climate to produce second year pseudostems (no winter dieback), which will then flower and produce fruit. Edible bananas are produced from very tropical locations - hybrid plants that need a frost free zone (z10 and 11).

Thanks for the concern. I am not under any direct threat from fires - and I truly feel terrible for those that are - but the air quality is awful!! At one point yesterday (Friday), Seattle, the closest metro area to me (~10 mi), was determined to have the worst air quality at that time of anywhere on the planet! And it is expected to stay like this, if not worsen, through the weekend. This morning there is a dense ocher glow - no visible sunrise. The air is heavy and the smoke layer low. Visibility is maybe a few hundred yards at most and the ferries are blowing their fog horns constantly. I ran out to do a few quick errands yesterday afternoon and my normal beachfront drive with a drop-dead gorgeous view of downtown Seattle and Mt. Rainier was completely obscured.....like they didn't exist! It is also preternaturally still and deathly quiet....not even the slightest breeze, no birdsong and very few out and about, even in cars. Very eerie!! And it smells! Air quality is rated as 'very unhealthy' and we are advised to stay indoors with doors and windows closed. This is putting a major kibosh on any of my gardening activities but I can't really complain....it is only bad air and not the property devouring conflagrations that others are experiencing. I really should feel quite lucky!