After almost a year of doing nothing with this huge, blank slate of a back yard, I finally put my Johnny Appleseed hat on and planted some trees. The initial idea was to plant 7 citrus trees on the west border and 5 fruit trees on the south border. The bonus tree in the southwest corner is a Texas Ebony intended to provide some cover and shade for the garden.


The project was a bit more ambitious than I had time for but I wanted to have the holes dug and automated watering system in place before I even thought about trees. The holes are 12 feet apart, which is more than enough for the dwarf variety that I have in mind. The trenches that you see are for the poly tubing that provides the water for the drip system. This was not easy to do with a spade and blazing sun overhead.


The automated watering system was the hardest part. This meant that I had to integrate it with the rest of the watering system, make sure that I had enough water pressure for all the trees, and plan for future expansion as I added more trees to the system.


Finally, when everything was in place, I planted the trees. Pictured here:

• Pomegranite
• Lemon
• Myers Lime
• Mexican Lime
• Navel Orange
• Arizona Sweet Orange
• Ruby Red Grapefruit

Also planted is a Texas Ebony (also known as "Black Tex", according to Gr*g), in the southwest corner. This one is expected to grow to 30 feet but doesn't have much of a canopy.