Planting Recommendations
A written recap of everything we walked through on-site — area by area, with what to plant, spacing, and the reasoning behind each call, so this is a plan you can run with on your own timeline.
Ten areas, from the irrigation lot to a couple of trees on the way out
Irrigation lot — fruit trees
Five fruit trees for the irrigation lot. Placement for each is marked on the aerial view — worth keeping this image handy alongside the notes below when you're ready to plant.
Pomegranate
Parfianka, not WonderfulCan take full sun without any issue. Left alone, it naturally wants to grow more bush-like with multiple stems. If you'd rather have a single-trunk tree form, that has to be trained from the very start — select and stake a leader early and prune competing stems as it grows.
Florida Prince Peach
Low chill hour varietyAlso handles a good amount of sun well. Florida Prince is the strongest producer of the common peach varieties here specifically because of its low chill hour requirement — our winters are usually enough to satisfy it. Fruit is super juicy and sweet. Thin the fruit each year — left unthinned, it sets way more peaches than the branches can support and they'll break under the weight.
Fig
Variety TBD — don't go genericFigs can be allowed to grow large or kept smaller — that's a decision to make upfront, since the pruning approach that keeps it small has to start from the very beginning, not be retrofitted later. There are hundreds of fig varieties out there, and plenty taste completely different from the standard grocery-store type. Don't settle for a boring one — when you're ready to pick a variety, let me know and I can help point you toward something worth growing.
Plum — Aprium
Flavor Delight or Cotton CandyRather than a standard plum, I'd go with an Aprium — a plum/apricot hybrid with genuinely good flavor. Flavor Delight and Cotton Candy are two solid varieties. These show up in nurseries as bareroot stock around January, which is also the ideal time to plant them — worth timing this one around that window.
Avocado
Needs the most sun protectionThis one needs more protection from direct sun than anything else on this list — plan its spot accordingly. It's a fun tree to grow, but set expectations: fruit is rare here, if you get any at all, and for a lot of people just keeping the tree alive long-term is the real challenge.
Grapevines along the back wall
Four vines total along the back wall is enough to fill the space out well — I'd do two Thompson Seedless and two Red Flame, the two best varieties for this.
Chicken coop
The southwest corner of the irrigation lot, under the existing tree, is your best bet for the coop. The shade there keeps things cooler for the chickens and supports laying, and the flood irrigation running through the lot shouldn't cause any issues for them.
East wall of the backyard, facing west
This wall faces west, so it takes the afternoon sun. A hedge here does double duty — privacy plus some relief from that exposure. Same three options we talked through on-site:
Hopseed
Fastest coverage of the three and needs very little water once established. Straightforward, dense, and low-maintenance — the easiest option to just plant and forget.
Orange Jubilee
Fast-growing with orange blooms most of the warm season. Handles our heat and cold well and doesn't need much water once established — adds color on top of the screening.
Twisted Myrtle
Denser and slower-growing than the other two, with fragrant evergreen foliage and white spring flowers. More of a refined, formal look if you want the hedge to double as a specimen feature.
In front of the hedge
Same area as the hedge — pull the existing rock and replace it with mulch, then plant Yellow Dot as a living ground cover in front of the hedge line. It fills in well and keeps that whole strip looking intentional rather than bare.
Pool equipment wall
For the small wall screening the pool equipment, a Tangerine Cross vine grown over it would dress it up nicely and hide the equipment behind some real greenery.
Back fence — the struggling tree
For the partially dying tree on the other side of the back fence, you've got two directions: attempt to save it the way we discussed on-site, or cut your losses and replace it. If you go the replacement route, I'd recommend either a Chinese Elm or a Tipuana Tipu for that spot.
Chinese Elm
Fast-growing, semi-evergreen shade tree with non-aggressive roots — a safe, reliable replacement for this spot.
Tipuana Tipu
Grows into a broader, more dramatic canopy with clusters of yellow-orange blooms — a bigger statement tree if the space can support it.
Garden beds — sun and shade zones
The aerial view shows two garden beds, and they're positioned to split by exposure — one gets more direct sun, the other stays shadier. Worth planning what goes in each around that difference rather than treating them the same.
Full-sun bed
This bed gets more direct sun through the day — the right spot for vegetables and plants that want strong light to actually produce well.
Shade-tolerant bed
This one stays shadier — a good fit for herbs and anything that prefers to be out of the harshest afternoon exposure.
In front of the garden beds
Same move as elsewhere on the property — pulling the rock out from in front of the garden beds and replacing it with mulch goes a long way toward cooling that area down and giving the garden a better environment to work with.
Two existing trees to deal with
Grapefruit — broken branch
Prune the branch back to just behind the break, then either paint the cut or cover it with cloth to protect the exposed wood from sun damage while it heals.
Lemon — declining
This one's just a matter of time before it fully declines. I'd recommend cutting your losses now, removing it, and planting something new in its place rather than waiting it out.