Contrary to my desire to recommend fruit trees for every local garden, they are unfortunately not for everyone. Those who want "low maintenance" landscapes should not even consider deciduous fruit trees and are generally limited to citrus. Even those who enjoy working in the garden need to be aware of, and preferably proficient with, the specialized pruning that most of the deciduous fruit trees require.

One simply cannot expect a gardener or even the most qualified of arborists to perform winter pruning of fruit trees. Most of the great arborists I know are from Pennsylvania, England, Berkeley or some other equally primitive civilization in which cultivation of fruit trees was not as common as it was here. The arborist I would trust with my fruit trees, who happens to be native to Willow Glen, would be the second one to tell you that the cost of winter fruit tree pruning greatly exceeds what the resulting fruit would cost at the most expensive of grocery stores.

Winter pruning of deciduous fruit trees should be completed during winter while the trees are dormant. It can be performed as early as defoliation, but must be finished before vascular activity resumes (at the end of dormancy) in late winter or early spring. Pruning during bloom or refoliation can be somewhat stressful and compromise fruit production.

Installation of new fruit trees should also be completed during this same time. Canned fruit trees (in #5 or #15 pots) are available all year, but are not as practical as bare root fruit trees. Not only are canned trees more expensive, but they are rarely well structured and are often stressed and root-bound. Bare root trees may seem wimpy and are even more so if properly pruned after installation, but they more efficiently disperse roots and a healthy branch structure.

Bare root fruit trees typically become available at the beginning of the year and will remain available until they emerge from dormancy. They are only slightly pruned as they are dug, so that they arrive in the nurseries with superfluous branches. These branches function as packing material, to cushion the trees during transportation, and offer more options when the trees are installed in the garden and pruned for the first time. All bare root fruit trees require at least some pruning immediately after installation; some more than others.

The most popular fruit trees are available bare root include apple, pear and the various stone fruit (of the genus Prunus) such as almond, apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach, plum and prune. There are also a few hybrids among apricot and plum, such as aprium, plumcot and pluot. (Almonds are actually the seeds of a fruit that resembles the others.) The various cane berries, grape, rose, artichoke, rhubarb and strawberry are also available bare root.

'Tree' of the Week: Chamaedorea

A colleague at Commercial Tree Care gave me this picture of the distinctively undivided foliage of the rather rare Chamaedorea geonomiformis. Only two other species of Chamaedorea have similar deeply cleft but undivided fronds (leaves). The feathery foliage of the other species is finely divided into narrow leaflets. Some species naturally produce multiple trunks, but some grow on single trunks, so are typically grown as clumps of a few specimens.

All are excellent houseplants and tolerate considerable shade. They should be protected from direct sun exposure and snails if moved to a sheltered area of the garden during warm weather. Chamaedorea spp. grow slowly and can live in small pots for so many years that soil may eventually decompose and need to be replaced. The largest species may be taller eight feet, but the most common are typically less than four feet.

Horticulturist Tony Tomeo can be contacted at 408.358.2574 or at LGHORTICULTURE@aol.com.