Pruning is the removal of dead or unneeded branches to encourage the growth of flowers. Usually a tree will end up devoting energy to branches that don t need it, while neglecting branches which are bearing more fruit. If you remove the branches that are taking all the nutrients, you will begin to see a flourish in the other ones. As an added benefit, you will become very familiar with the process of growing that specific tree. You won t be overwhelmed by having many different types, but instead you will become a master of that specific type. Generally in an orchard, the trees are planted in a row, then pruned to be in a two dimensional shape. Usually the most adaptable plants are the ones that are indigenous anyways. If you live in a zone that is suffering a water crisis, usually the only plants that survive are the ones that have been there all along. This is because they are used to the conditions and know how to survive. Just take a drive through the undeveloped regions of your city, and look at what trees are green. These allow for long rows of trees, while still producing large amounts of fruit. If you operate an orchard, you probably use this shape to fit as many trees as possible into the area you have. Fan trees use the same theory as espalier trees. However, the shape is slightly different. The same central vertical stem is used, but the connected branches are not horizontal; they grow in the same pattern as a standard tree, only they are two dimensional rather than three dimensional. When all of this business is done, take the soil that you dug up and fill in the hole completely. Unless you want big piles of dirt everywhere, you should be sure you use all of the dirt even is it is a couple inches higher than the rest of your yard. This is because it will compress when watered. Before you firm up the soil, make sure that the tree is completely vertical and will not fall over. One way to ensure that your fruit tree will remain healthy is to never harvest all of the fruit at the same time. If all of the fruit is left on the tree, it will grow to an unbearable weight. The combined weight of all of the fruit can get very heavy and snap the branches. So once the fruit starts to grow, you should always pick some of them before they are completely ready.