need planting advice

[fish n chips]

i’m planning to plant a number of fruit trees around the perimeter of my house & yard (zone 10b) and training them as espaliers or hedges, 7’-8’ between plants and 8’-12’ high. i also have a spot or 2 to grow a tree with a nice canopy in the center of the yard.

i have some questions about how and where to plant the larger trees, specifically mango, green sapote, black sapote, white sapote, avocado, lychee, longan, lucuma, cherimoya

1.  Roots.  I will be planting close to the house and the driveway.  Is it advisable to use some form of root barrier, even if i keep the trees small?  Should i consider keeping some trees in pots?

2.  Sunshine.  Which trees should i plant in the prime locations? 

3.  Landscape.  Which trees will i enjoy in the most visible parts of the yard?   

4.  Pruning.   I’d like to grow most trees with a central leader and horizontal cordons.  Which trees will be difficult to train?  which would be a top choice to grow with a canopy in the middle of the yard?

thanks for your help!

[fyliu]

Is that 10b with coastal humidity or with hills blocking the humidity? I'm in Burbank and it's several degrees warmer here than Downtown LA just 10 miles away but with the coastal influence.

[fish n chips]

i'm near hollywood, 8-9 miles from the beach.  i get moderate coastal influence/humidity, often have dew in the mornings.  temperatures here are a few degrees cooler than in burbank.

[spaugh]

Fuerte avovado or hass avocado tree will get big fast and make a nice canopy in that middle spot.  Mango needs full hot sun to grow well.  You could grow avocado and cherimoyas easily there.  Sapotes get large maybe hard to tame.  I would suggest some apple and peach trees too.  They are easy to grow and shape.

[spaugh]

With the apple and stone fruits you can get dwarfing rootstocks also.  Holiday is a good dwarf avocado.  Roots maybe an issue but it will take many years.  If you can ketep them 3 or 4 ft away you should be ok.  Just dont plant near the sewer, water, or gas lines IMO. 

[fyliu]

Okay, so you don't have to worry about frost and sun burn as much there. All the things in your list would grow well. Maybe lychee won't get enough chill to fruit every year, but that's the case inland as well. White sapote might get too big unless you prune or get small ones like suebelle.

My parents who live more inland has 8ft spacing between trees. It really depends on how tall you want them. They can be pruned shorter if you want to keep things close together. Their trees with that spacing are 12-15ft tall. I think avocado and longan are meant to be large, at least the common varieties. Kohala longan will make 5 ft of growth a year. If you pruned it back too hard, that branch won't flower the next year. So you kind of have to give it the space.

My lucuma (inland location) hasn't grown since I got it maybe 5-6 years ago. Extreme heat and cold stressed it out.

[fish n chips]

i managed to get 4 trees in the ground yesterday.  i’ll have time to plant a few more in a couple weeks.

i had intended to plant larger trees in the ground and keep smaller trees (guava etc) in pots.  from your feedback it seems that i should consider planting my smaller trees and keeping some larger trees contained. 

fyliu, thanks for the heads up on the longan.  that’s very helpful to know.  i have a small biew kiew and although it’s probably not as vigorous as kohala it sounds like i may want to keep this in a pot.  hope your lucuma finds it’s footing. 

thanks spaugh, i picked good spots for mango & avocado, and made sure to locate the service lines.  are sapotes difficult to tame because they are fast growers or from the way the fruiting wood develops?   which are most difficult between c edulis, d nigra and the pouterias? 

my pouterias are still young but suebelle is ready to plant.  still deciding whether i should put her in the ground.  d nigra is ready to graft