On 7/22/2008 2:30 PM, Ivan wrote [in part]:
It seems as if though my trunk is extremely short in comparison to the
branches..

This is good.

And all the branches are springing up..
But there are only three branches coming out of the trunk of the tree,
and the rest of the branches spring out of these three ..

When you do prune, keep the main branches and shorten the others.

The leaves look different on each of the three branches, and the
flowers are too, so.... I guess I'll have to wait and see what comes
out..

You might have a "top worked" tree. This is a tree on which different
varieties have been grafted to the same trunk. While this is not done
for commercial orchards, it is indeed well known for home gardens.

You might even have different species from the same genus: peach, plum,
nectarine, almond, etc. I've also heard of this being done for the pome
fruits: apple, pear, etc. My mother once had a rose bush with three
varieties of rose grafted to a young apple trunk (roses being related to
apples).

Just a quick question:
When should I be adding fertiliser to the tree?
I read at the beginning of spring and end of autumn.. IS this correct?

I feed in the spring, just as leaves begin to open. I rarely feed
anything in the autumn. Nutrients promote new growth, which will not
happen with deciduous plants (e.g., peaches) and which will be too
tender for frost with evergreen plants (e.g., citrus). Yes, we do get
night-time frosts every winter. (But I haven't seen snow here in over
10 years and only three times in the 35 years I've been in my current
house.)

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at http://www.rossde.com/garden/