For The Union-Tribune
Nalani Vaughn, owner of Fruitmommy Organic Solutions, watched as her crew of experienced pruners removed deadwood and branches from the grove of 15 mature navel and Valencia orange trees, survivors of a once-expansive orchard that typified the Del Mar neighborhood before its subdivision into home lots decades ago.
The pruners opened up the once-dense trees, bringing light, air and ocean breezes into their interior structure. Misshapen oranges with deformed peels littered the ground. She pointed out how prior poor pruning practices had damaged them.
“They usually cut from the outside in, they just pack it all up into a shape like a ball. What that does is immediately destroys the energy of the tree,” Vaughn said. “There’s an energy flow that starts with the roots and flows throughout the entire tree up to the very top. That tree loses energy in its pathway where you’ve just cut off a branch and left a little 3-inch nub, or where you’ve cut the branch from the outside and left a heading cut.”
Bad pruning cuts can produce cracks in the branches or tree bark that provide an opening for insect infestations. The correct way to prune citrus — which is best done right after fruiting finishes in midwinter or at the same time as other fruit trees — is “interior pruning, from the inside out, taking off old branches, always removing all of the deadwood and correcting the previous incorrect cuts to establish the energy flow from roots to physical tip,” Vaughn explained.
The result is a tree with good air flow throughout its branches, allowing sun and wind to penetrate the tree and eliminating bugs and diseases without the need to spray, she added.
Stone fruit trees, such as peaches, apricots, plums and cherries, require different pruning techniques, Vaughn explained, and she recommended hiring knowledgeable professionals to prune fruit trees annually, normally during their winter dormant period.
“You still need to prune the interior. But you also must do something called bud setting that can only be done while they’re sleeping in winter. You’re setting the structure of the tree, removing the ends of all branches at a specific bud directed towards the outside of the tree, freeing up a lot of energy and directing those branches in the right direction for the next year,” she said.
Vaughn added that pruning stone fruit requires knowledge of each variety’s specific characteristics, since it’s easy to trim back what appear to be dead shoots but actually are tiny fruiting spurs requiring four to five years to mature. After pruning, stone fruit trees need to be sprayed with copper fungicide while still “sleeping” to prevent fungal diseases.
Correcting old pruning errors is a critical first step in restoring the trees to health. Most people, she said, don’t know how to prune their trees correctly or they unknowingly hire people who don’t understand correct pruning techniques. She and her crew regularly train interested owners or their gardeners in proper pruning practices.
Her team had started working at the Del Mar home about a month before, starting with a complete evaluation of the trees’ health before developing a revitalization plan. This involves an assessment also of soil and water conditions and nutritional deficiencies.
In this case, plans also call for new plantings of additional fruit trees of different varieties best suited to the area’s microclimate. The trees will also follow the successive ripening method, enabling the family to enjoy fresh fruit year-round.
The project includes creation of a seven-layer “food forest,” with shorter fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, fruiting vines, several layers of vegetables and herbs sheltering under the shaded canopy of a “grandfather” macadamia or avocado tree.
The current homeowner, who prefers to remain anonymous, purchased the property within the last few years and recognized that the orange trees, along with nearby macadamia nut, avocado, guava and fig trees that previous owners had planted, were declining and needing specialized remedial care.
On a friend’s recommendation, he called in Vaughn for a complete evaluation of his trees.
“In my home consultation, we go through every single tree in the orchard,” Vaughn said. “I inspect them like a doctor. I diagnose every single bug, disease and nutritional deficiencies that I find within each tree.
“After that, I look for other factors. Here, we found issues with the soil, water, insects and diseases and fungal diseases on the trees themselves, as well as micronutrient deficiencies,” she explained, adding that they are treating the grove for all these problems.
The homeowner chose both to rehabilitate his home’s current trees and, in the next phase, to plant more fruit trees and create more of an edible landscape.
“He wanted this to be a place where his young children can learn to eat off the land, cultivate their own food and grow up in nature, incorporating these natural concepts,” she explained.
Vaughn considers San Diego tap water’s alkalinity one of the key problems for fruit trees, because it causes nutrient lockout, preventing the trees from taking in nutrients from the soil or fertilizer. Correcting the pH balance is essential for fruit trees to thrive and receive essential nutrients, which also affects their ability to resist diseases and infestation.
The San Diego County Water Authority explained that they deliver water to their member agencies with a near-neutral alkalinity of 7.5 pH, “to meet or exceed state and federal water quality standards,” though the independent water agencies that actually deliver the water may add to or adjust water treatment chemicals, potentially affecting its alkalinity.
But according to Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Science’s Horticulture Section, fruit trees prefer a pH range of 6.0 to 7.0, with several other sources recommending a 6.5 pH as ideal.
“One of the biggest differences about Fruitmommy is that we focus on the fact that city (tap) water is actually responsible for a lot of the micronutrient deficiencies that we see in trees. People can be very good at fertilizing their trees and still see deficiencies and be struggling with getting fruit. You need to go to the source of the problem, which is actually the water. We teach about neutralizing the city water first (using humic acid), which allows the uptake of all the other micronutrients. We then feed the trees,” Vaughn said, explaining that they also treat and amend the soil.
Some of the signs that fruit trees are ailing and need specialized care include declining quality, quantity, size, shape or flavor of their fruit, changes in the color or a brown edge to their leaves or clear signs of mold or a bug infestation on their leaves, trunks or branches.
With the right diagnosis, pruning, planning and care, any of these conditions — whether present in a single tree or in an orchard of any size — owners can remedy or avoid most of these problems, she said.
Vaughn, now 43, grew up in Bend, Ore. While living in the high desert there, she was an avid gardener, inspired by her grandparents, who ran the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, in Contra Costa County. They cultivated an opulent garden at their Bay Area home and nurtured her love of gardens and fruit trees.
She came to San Diego on vacation and, bowled over by all she could grow here, never left.
Finding herself needing a job as a young single mom, she turned to her first love and found work in nurseries, focusing on fruit trees. There she learned the importance of both customer service and education. Taking a few minutes to teach customers about caring for their plants made all the difference between happy and angry buyers and plants thriving or dying, she discovered.
Vaughn, who gained her horticultural education through hands-on experience, sought out the most knowledgeable teachers throughout her nursery work and, spongelike, absorbed everything she could learn while also consuming over 1,000 books in her field.
She capped her nursery work with an intense internship with the late fruit tree guru Jim Neitzel, first chairman of the San Diego Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers, who mentored her and “taught her everything.”
Vaughn started her Fruitmommy consulting business about 13 years ago, encouraged by the response and from moms involved with classes and a children’s fruit tree project she started in Rohr Park in Bonita, near where she lived. Many of the moms invited her to their homes to treat their trees, enabling her to experiment with best practices and correct her mistakes.
Her work with the local moms also enabled her to refine her formula for Rapid Response, the powdered organic water neutralization treatment and nutrient blend she began developing in response to her nursery customers’ needs. She now sells it on her website and through Amazon and also markets an organic soil treatment product, Soil Refresh.
“You can save a tree in 48 hours,” by applying the right nutrients dissolved in water, she said, having observed such a rapid turnaround in fruit trees.
As the neighborhood moms recommended her to their friends, Vaughn developed a growing reputation as an intuitive “fruit tree whisperer.” Her business, currently based near Bonita, took off, entirely by word of mouth. Now she heads a team of 11, working throughout most of San Diego County, and increasingly in North County at homes with larger groves.
In addition to her tree rehabilitation work, Vaughn provides fully personalized landscape design, planting and garden care services, with a special focus on fruit trees, edible landscapes and food forests, and advises on the addition, selection and care of microclimate-appropriate fruit trees for gardens of every size. She can draw from her own nursery stock of over 500 trees as well as specialized nurseries.
Her sincerest wish is to share the delight she’s experienced working with fruit trees and gardens.
“There’s a certain joy that takes place when you have a connection with the Earth that’s almost indescribable. Being able to connect with trees opened up a whole new world for me, and made me feel a certain sense of peace and joy that I had never felt in my life,” Vaugh said.
“It made me see the Earth in a completely different way, and my world was illuminated by that. I want everyone to feel that joy in their lives, whether it be just the tiniest little tomato plant or a whole entire food forest.”
For more information about Fruitmommy Organic Solutions or to request a free initial consultation, visit fruitmommy.com or call 619-646-8389.
