Preventing Diseases in Fruit Trees If you maintain any pitted fruit trees such as plums, peaches, or cherries, I m sure you know that those types of trees are much more susceptible to diseases than any other type. While the fruits are delicious, it can be rather hard to live with all of the maladies that can plague the life of everyone who has ever grown one of those types of fruit trees. Picking the Right Orange Tree If you live in a hot, humid sub-tropical zone, you have many options for growing fruit trees. You are lucky enough to be able to support almost any type of plant as long as you prevent pests from taking over. You should consider growing an orange tree, as these are usually easy to maintain and produce some of the most delicious fruits. Having too many branches on one side could cause the tree to become permanently crooked. Many gardeners don t even think about pruning their trees until they start to bear fruit. This is a big mistake, and you should never neglect to care for a tree just because it hasn t yet begun to produce. During the entire process of growth, you should prune the tree in a way that it is even and uniform. The most popular method of keeping young trees upright is to put long stakes into the ground on either side, and tie loops around the tree. Each loop should be fairly loose to allow for further expanding of the trunk. Lots of people just have a stake on one side of the tree, but this is not a good practice because it generally doesn t allow for further growth of the tree. Chopping down a tree by hand will take you forever, and will not even begin to be as accurate as using a chainsaw. If you don t have a chainsaw, you shouldn t even consider doing it without one. Ask around with your neighbors and see if anyone has one that you could borrow. If that doesn t work, rent one from your local store. Only plant what you can handle. Generally if you are getting started on a large amount of trees, you will want them to all be the same type. If they all require the same amount of water and nutrients, you won t have to spend as much time catering individually to the different types of tree. As an added benefit, you will become very familiar with the process of growing that specific tree.