By all means plant the seedlings your son is growing. You are in San Francisco, and apples are really easy to grow in California, we are lucky in Northern California in that we don't have to spray much. Seedlings usually produce good fruit for backyard orchardists. While your seedlings may not bear bland, perfect looking commercial grade apples, you most likely will get much more interesting fruit than what you can buy at the store. However, keep in mind what Mark said above, if your apples came from Washington State, chances are they may be pollinated by crab apples. If they were grown locally, your chances are much better as it's not common practice to use crab apples as pollinators in California. Most heirlooms are chance seedlings anyway, including even some contemporary commercial apples such as golden delicious and mcintosh. So have fun! If by some remote chance one of the trees doesn't produce good fruit, you can always have someone graft it over for you to another variety you like. But try planting all the seedlings you have, because it will greatly increase the chance that you will really find a new gem of an apple.

Thanks for the clarifications Ken! I understand what you mean about not blaming the nursery who sold it. The local nurseries around here tend to get stock from all over the place and some years are better than others. I see your point in just letting it work its way to a natural form by doing nothing, but it seems to be a fine balance and hard to know when to act or just let it be. I planted an Autumn Blaze (about a 5 gallon) when I first moved into my home, did nothing and 10 years later it has around 4 competing leaders. While they are all straight in this case, it has created a potential future issue and it is well past the point of make simple corrections that I could have done at planting if I had a basic understanding of pruning. A great book (especially if you are into elm trees, which I happen to be) is called "Pruning Young Elms" by Chad Giblin from the University of Minnesota. http://blog.lib.umn.edu/umtrees/trees/pruning-w-chad/ It is the only book of its kind that I know of. Just 100 pages that are dedicated to explaining how one should take care of and train an elm tree (American, Asian ad Hybrid) so that it has a nice structure and form at maturity. One of the key points stressed in this book is that all branches below 15 feet should be considered temporary and therefore pruning practices should focus from the top down. It gives first hand accounts for "training" elm trees with leaders that "diverge from center" using various methods, and indicates that "elms usually respond very quickly and favorably, to this practice". This is a great book for anyone who is interested in Elm trees, and also a good overall resource for general pruning practices, etc.. I know my neighbor may be interested in the immediate short term improvement by straightening out the tree, but I was looking to help him approach it from a more long term perspective. Depending on the techniques that would be used, it could result in a less than beautiful tree in the short term vs just letting it be, but since this tree is capable of outliving everyone one of us (if it's lucky and doesn't get DED, elm yellows, etc.), I wanted help make sure that is pruned correctly. The target in my mind would be that one day, many years into the future it would be capable of being pruned up (at least 10 feet above the street / preferably 15ft) similar to just about every large city maintained street tree that I have encountered that was planted long before I was born. :) Ken, you have given me a lot to think about though and I always appreciate your informative comments. Us beginners need all the help and we can get! It is very easy to want to do too, much vs. just letting it be and waiting for nature and time to fix things! I have placed a link to a short clip from the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall. While it has nothing to due with tree care or tree pruning at all (deals with learning to surf), it still kind of reminds me of pruning and the need to find the perfect balance between doing nothing and doing too much! Here is a link that might be useful: Link to Movie Clip (About surfing, but applies to pruning also)

I have a number of thriving crabapples (one a profusion) and apple trees on my property. Apples love it here in Vermont so they usually do very well. However one tree that I purchased, I think it was an American spirit, developed apple scab. I suspect it had been ill treated before I purchased it, and the stress of transplanting was a final blow. I purchased a fungicide, captan, from this place: http://www.treehelp.com/captan-fungicide-8oz/ I mixed it per the package directions and either sprayed it on the leaves or dabbed it on, can't remember. Fortunately the tree was small so I was able to apply it to nearly every leaf. It worked like a miracle. About a year later we had a new waterline installed, and I had to dig up the tree and move it to a different location to prevent the roots from growing into the line. I feared that a second transplanting would be the final nail in the coffin, but my crabapple had recovered to a point where it survived the transplanting without a single wilted leaf. It has tripled in size in the intervening years and is very healthy. This seems remarkable to me considering that during the final transplant I had to slice through a number of roots and even the lower section of the taproot. I guess my whole point is that captan works wonders on apple scab and I would give it a try sooner rather than later. Also, my experience is that you cannot overwater an apple tree. Many of mine thrive in extremely wet areas. They also grow in drier spots, but I wouldn't worry about excess moisture. I had planted a lilac in one wet spot, and it was gradually dying. I moved it to a drier area and planted an apple tree in its place. Both are happy with the arrangement. The lilac came back from the brink of death and the apple is thriving in the "lilac death spot." My profusion tree is the one in the center, and the tree on the right is the former apple scab invalid. Photo is from a few years ago.

Hi Ken, I'm in east end of Toronto. Are you suggesting I move shrubs in the fall when they are dormant. This is certainly more involved compared to moving perennials. Since these are trees the root ball is much bigger. Hello Brandon, thanks for replying. Yes, I'm concerned about planting crabapple and dogwood in clay. The drainage is good. I have a prunus cistena growing in there and also clematis durandi for six or seven years and both are doing well. If they are alright maybe the other trees and shrubs should as well.