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Revised and updated for 2008!  

Growing Apples In the City is for the often-overlooked lowland Southern California gardener who wishes to grow apples, but finds most of the available apple culture information is geared toward colder climates.  Often these instructions and guidelines  are both discouraging and have no relevance to our area. 

We've prepared a guide specifically for warm and dry climates like Southern California.  We think this may be one of the best places in the world to grow apples.  (And we also modestly consider this book to be the comprehensive source to tell you how to do it!)

Warm Climate Apple Varieties

Apple Culture

We show you how to take that potted or bare root tree and train it up right to become a lean, mean, apple-producing machine.  Southern California's long season and mild winters mean we can grow 12 months out of the year.  Our dry climate and isolation from other apple producing areas makes us relatively pest and disease free, to the envy of other parts of the country.  You may never have to spray for bugs or disease.  

Growing apples in a warm dry climate lifts many of the restrictions that hamper growers in colder parts of the country.  We show you how to use this to your best advantage and give you the confidence to try growing apples you never thought possible.

Prune Like A Man (or like a woman, but never like a wuss)

We take the fear and mystery out of pruning to show you how and why to prune, with emphasis on fruit production and tree size control.  You can prune with confidence and get the job done quickly and correctly, and keep the tree the size you want. 

High-Density Planting

Still think apple trees need to be spaced 8-12 feet apart?  Get with it!  Modern commercial orchards use small trees spaced close together in order to stay competitive.  Apples can be trained 18" apart on a fence or trellis like a grape vine, planted 2' apart in a hedgerow, or planted 4-to-a-hole, 18" apart.  

Grafting and Propagating

Grafting opens up a whole new world for the backyard orchardist.  Growing Apples In the City shows step-by-step photos of this ancient but simple art, enabling you to "custom build" your own tree or plant a whole orchard economically to suit your needs. 

You can also switch the variety of an existing tree that produces poor apples to a superior variety, and be picking apples years sooner that starting a whole new tree. 

We also cover dwarfing rootstock varieties and their attributes.  Apples have more dwarfing rootstock varieties available than all other fruit trees combined.  You'll learn how to pick the one that's right for you and  make it perform its best.

 Warm Climate Apple Bizarre Behavior

Southern California's ultra-long season and warm winters cause apples to do strange (and wonderful)  things sometimes, such as blossoming and fruiting at the same time as on the right. 

Apples for the Students

Also included are special sections on growing apples at public schools, with special considerations administrators need to know and suggested activities for educators to incorporate into learning times. 

What to do With Them Apples

Bonus Chapter

Just so we're not accused of being stuck on apples, we've included a chapter on growing blueberries in a warm climate.  Yes, dozens of varieties of Southern Highbush blueberries thrive here and produce tons of the biggest, most flavorful blueberries you've ever had!  Not only that, many of these beautiful bushes are evergreen in our climate and produce multiple crops a year, the first ones in April (much to the irritation of northern growers). 

We'll show you the secrets of making this formerly temperamental crop thrive in our soil and climate and where to find them.