I dont think you want to fall fertilize, usually you dont want a flush of growth before winter. Someone advise when the best time to fertilize and why please? 75% petal fall. I dont agree with spraying pesticides while bees are still interested. Usually a storm knocks the flowers off here before it even gets to 75% petal fall. If you dont want to use imidan, spectracide trizide once and done labled for fruit, has worked well for us in pc alley. Its cheap also, and is almost odorless unlike imidan. I stopped spraying on 1 tree june 20th , the others july 12th. Just to see what I can get away with. Seems like im in the clear. I think my schedule here next year looks like this: Green tip to pink oil and immunox ,100 % petal fall (imidan immunox + captan) and 3 cover sprays(also imidan immunox + captan). I am channeling harvestman.. "OK, I don't know where you live and your spray issues are going to be greatly affected by your location but here's my spray schedule for the scores of orchards I manage around SE NY. No dormant oil- do an oil spray somewhere between the point where emerging shoots are 1/2" and the flower clusters begin to show pink. Mix Nova (myclobutinol =immunox) at highest legal rate with 1 to 2% oil. If it's closer to pink use 1%.( Remember oil and captan are not compatible.) Don't spray again until petal fall when petals have mostly gone from latest flowering varieties and bees have lost interest. Than spray Imidan + Nova + Captan mixed together at highest legal rates. Repeat in 10 to 14 days. Where I manage orchards, the space between earliest flowering Japanese plums and latest flowering apples is only 2 weeks or so which usually allows me to wait until the latest flowering trees are ready to begin spraying anything. Plum curculio seems to time its appearence conveniently to the rythm of the last flowering varieties. This may not be true where you are. Sometimes it leaves me with plums too far along to spray oil by the time I do the apples and Euro plums sometimes get mites because of this- so you may need to spray oil on different trees at different times. If you can't find or bear using Imidan- an organiphosphate that is restricted in a few states, you best use Sevin instead but add an extra spray and apply at about 7 day intervals. (OR spectracide trizide once and done labled for fruit 10-14 days) All this is based on plum curculio being your primary insect problem which is the case most areas east of the Mis. River. These sprays will also absolutely control scab, CAR and Mildew as well as most of the crop fatal insects. Apple fly maggot is an exception, but I haven't had much of a problem with this pest in the orchards I manage. This pest can be controlled with a lot of fake apples smeared with tangle trap. If you don't want to use synthetic chemicals, you will probably have quite a battle on your hands. You'll probably have to do at least 4 applications of Surround about a week apart. Stone fruit will require the addition of another fungicide application or 2 (Indar) starting 2 or 3 weeks after final insecticide spray. Because I manage so many orchards so far apart I have to resort to a spray schedule that is based on expectations rather than actual monitoring. You may be able to reduce insecticide sprays with monitoring but PC are quick and sly. Other problems may occur later in the season and you will in time learn to monitor and react to the pitfalls. Good luck, Alan Haigh- The Home Orchard Co.

Soils differ; so do situations. While there are some good rules of thumb, they are ruleS, plural. I have poor deep droughty sand at a planting site about 25 miles away. There is also widespread experience from a vast area of similar soil in the SEUS (not nearly all of SEUS, but a lot of it). A larger or deeper hole and a moderate amount of amending the backfill soil with water-holding or more nutritive materials appears to have benefit and appears to have little or no or only rare negative effect, especially if the backfill soil is firmed. In my own case the principal benefit is in holding some soil water for new plantings in between my occasional watering trips in blazing, often rainless weeks in summer. Nutrient leaching is also presumably reduced. The plants get off to a better start. In a few years there is probably little remaining physical effect (except for persistent river-valley silt or vermiculate amended into backfill soils for the finicky pawpaw). My loose soil needs no loosening beyond the minimal planting hole; it would be a waste of effort. Now if I were lucky enough to have a clayey soil, then a loose amended planting-hole backfill would be asling for trouble in rainy periods ("bathtub effect") and loosening beyond the immediate planting hole would have good effect. I personally like putting in the better (in my case, only slightly better) A-horizon soil first (lowest) because my mulching and fertilizing will eventually produce another enriched zone in the poorer soil placed at top. If, perchance, it also encourages initial downward growth of roots in my deep dry sands, so much the better.

kmas, you would want to water at the drip line and a bit beyond. That's where the feeder roots reside. Hard to know what that drip line might have been, since the tree has been trimmed, but 5' would not be unusual for the age of the tree. I would attempt to water at least 3' out if possible. The drip line is certainly beyond 1' with the age of this tree. You can set up micro sprinkler emitters that point outward from the trunk at 12 3 6 and 9 o'clock. Or, at the least two points. For fertilizer, apply at the drip line. I would use a citrus fertilizer as it will have more N in proportion to P and K, and it should have micronutrients as well. Several good options out there. You can get Vigoro Citrus & Avocado fertilizer at the big box stores. Patty S.

You could go native and put in a flannelbush (Fremontodendron californicum). Drought tolerant, beautiful flowers, about 10' tall, dense evergreen foliage... I've seen some growing on the east side of the city (potrero). I don't know how one would do in the fog belt but it could be okay. Other thoughts, how about a loquat? They grow well in the city, have nice dense foliage, and can be kept at about that height with a little maintenance. I also have seen a nice hibiscus in the city that might fit your needs.