When I lived in San Diego Ein Sheimer apple was my favorite and best producer. It is an excellent apple sauce apple, excellent flavor even from small green apples. It got confused and started blooming in winter a couple of times and actually had fruit. Winter Banana was my second favorite. Living on a canyon, I liked particularly growing citrus since possums and raccoons wouldn't bother them because of the acidic peels. I wish I could grow those now.:-( And while I get enough chill for all those stone fruits, I have had plum and peach trees get diseased and die in 2-3 years, and most of my cherry trees have bacterial canker and haven't borne fruit for years. My current direction is to plant mulberries, paw paws, and persimmons.:-P

Well, thank you for your kind words. I am very blessed to have a lovely, lovely piece of property in a wonderful neighborhood with a perfect climate. We pinch ourselves every day that we are so fortunate. As far as intensively planting fruit trees - depends on the type of tree. With stone fruits, you can get away with one-hole planting if you're a good pruner. Not so much with citrus. They need their own "space", even if it's tight. If you're considering intensive planting with citrus, I would strongly recommend truly dwarfing rootstocks ('Flying Dragon' if you can find it, or at the least, Cuban Shaddock, which is what Four Winds puts most of their trees on). Boy, it is really hard to limit my trees to just the 5 favorites. Here is the list of what I really, really love in my yard, not in any top to bottom order: Seedless Kishu Mandarin Ponkan Mandarin California Honey Mandarin Page Mandarin (nothing beats it for juice) Moro Orange Tarocco Orange Wekiwa Tangelolo Valentine Pommelo hybrid Cocktail Pommelo hybrid Melogold/Oroblanco grapefruit hybrid Jan Boyce Avocado Reed Avocado Comice Pear Seckel Pear Any of my 3 different Fuji apples (Fuji, Red Fuji, Myra Fuji) Spice Zee Necatplum Artic Star Necatrine Royal Lee Cherry Any of my flat peento peaches (several varieties) Ronde de Bordeaux fig Panache fig Just to name a few :-) I would strongly urge you to join your local CRFG Chapter. Find out who is your real fruit tree guru in your chapter. See if you can find someone in the chapter that has done what you want to do. It really, really helps to have someone to pattern after, and have as a sounding board. You should have a fairly active chapter up in SF. In fact, there are some rather famous citrus hobbyist growers up in N. California that you might want to make sure you visit, if your CRFG chapter has any tours set up. You will find membership extremely helpful in what you're trying to accomplish. Patty S. Here is a link that might be useful: California Rare Fruit Growers

I know, I am impressed with how they are tended, not all perfect but the volunteers come and regularly cut off old blooms and prune and the watering is what I noticed really helps compared to some other gardens I have seen. I did see Dr. Huey making his presence known where he shouldn't be in a few areas. ;-)I am glad I went when I did, the heat wave hit the next day and many blooms looked fried when I went by again a few days later. Crimson Bouquet and Brass Band took on this faded antique look.

Bed looks too small for non-dwarf crabs with spreading branching. Even a Sargent crabapple would be poking beyond it eventually. For that matter the way the bed is shaped there is a case for putting the tree in the back corner - making the situation even tighter. And suggesting a shrub should be used for height instead of a tree. Actually if it were mine I would furnish this bed mostly with shrubs, instead of having a high proportion of perennials dispersed all through it. Otherwise the dissectum maple was actually a very good idea, as long as shorter companion plants more in character with it were added, as replacements for the existing combination.