Craig, Posting pictures here is pretty easy. I've posted instructions in this forum many many times, but will do it again in hopes it will help. One of the easiest ways to provide your photo to be embedded into a post is to upload it onto an image hosting site such as Photobucket, Flickr, etc. That should be pretty straight forward, and the individual sites will give instructions on how to get your photos uploaded to their site when you sign up. Once your picture has been uploaded, find its web address by right clicking on the image and copying the image location. Some sites may even provide the address in a text box below the photo for your convenience. Let's say, as an example, that the address of the picture you want to post is http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg To embed the picture into a post, use the command img src="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg"> For larger pictures, it would be very very very helpful to add a width attribute. Do do so, just add width=600 after the second quotation mark. 600 is a reasonable width for Gardenweb forums and won't mess up the formatting of your post causing people to have to pan around to read the text. So, for larger pictures, the command above could be rewritten as: img src="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg" width=600> Note that I had to use special characters to get the commands above to show up here without turning into pictures, but you can use them as shown (with the correct image location, of course).

Wow. I thank you all for the great advice! Yeah, I guess I'm a bit disappointed that it's on EMLA111. I was hoping the tree would be a bit smaller than that. I too don't understand why they'd go with 111... especially since they are very highly regarded at my nursery, and they obviously know what their doing when it comes to the grafting & training. O'well... we'll adjust. I believe in order to grow another tier, typically you'd allow a new leader to grow slightly above where you want the next level. At that point you'd head it leaving at least 2 buds where you want your new branches to come out (one on either side ideally). Right, that was going to be my plan. I wonder how much higher I should let it go? Maybe 4 inches beyond the desired new lateral height? Skip some of the historical chapters in Tukey's book for now. Read the chapter on Summer Pruning. that will give you the most immediately applicable info to your situation. Next, go backwards a little and read the chapter titled Principles Of Pruning And Training. I've got the book open right now. Thanks! It is a little unusual to place a trained, espalier tree in a freestanding situation as you have done. Normally, such a tree would be sited next to a wall or fence, where some support is already available, or could be built without appearing out of place. Yeah, I knew this location wasn't typical, but I was figuring it would still work out nicely because I've already got a bunch of trellises in the back yard, and really, it helps one from feeling like they're going to fall off my raised back yard. Since I've already got all the trellises back there, it will probably fit right in with all the others! :-) The long lateral branches of an espalier will require support to keep their shape I guess my question here is... will they need support for the entire life of the tree? Or just while the tree is growing? Or, does it just need support to bear the weight of the apples? Being that the tree is currently 6 feet tall, and about 1.5¨ at the trunk, anybody want to venture a guess as to how old it is? The good news is that you don't have to do anything at the moment, except study;) . Yep, I've got a lot to learn. Right now, I know enough to be dangerous! :-) Thanks again! -Glenn

"good" depends on what type of apple(s) you like. are you near the bottom of a slope (cool summer evening downslope breezes)? bad for bananas. essential for (some) apples. A full size apple's hard to pick (35' x 35') anyway, for this and the 7' west wallspace question, think about what you like (mandarins vs pomelo vs etc) then hit the libraries (ccclib and ucb or even ucd if you want to go that far... dvc's not so great for edibles, IIRC.). also crfg.org. (and how tall is the wall? typical rancher eaves height? what's the eaves overhang (typical?)? depth of soil and air space from wall to nearest immovable object?)

I had part of my small backyard landscaped, and asked the landscape contractor to plant 4 small fruit trees to be espalier against a wrought iron fence. They are Hosui asian pear, Stella cherry, Twentieth Century asian pear, and Craig's crimsom cherry. Although the landscape contractor recommended not trying the cherry trees due to their strongly upward growth, he went ahead and planted them. My learning points: The asian pears are a cinch to train and very fruitful. But the cherry branches must be trained during the brief period when the young branches are small and pliable. Once they begin to stiffen, it puts a strain on the branches to tie them horizontally. One branch finally cracked under the strain. My other mistake is how close the trunk is to the wrought iron fence. It looked great when the young trees were planted 1 1/2 years ago, only 2-3 inches from the fence. The trunk's girth is expanding rapidly even though they are all semi-dwarf rootstock, and are now touching the fence. I fear that in a few short years, my fence will begin leaning from the weight of the expanding tree trunks. Should have planted at least 6 inches from the fence. Wonder why the landscape contractor didn't point that out? He is very experienced.