When creating his yard, Boyle Heights resident Jose Ramirez focused mostly on fruit trees and planting them as close together as he could manage using organic permaculture techniques.
Replacing lawns with drought-tolerant plants is a good start in dry Southern California. Setting up a recycled water system is even better.
“Being an artist has helped me be a better teacher and gardener because being an artist means being creative and thinking outside the box,” he said. “I had a huge backyard with a lot of potential, and I started to go online looking at what nurseries had available. I’d see these exotic tropical trees, and I’d think, ‘I’ve got to try this.’ You know some things are going to work and some aren’t going to work, but you’ve got to take chances and try new things.
“I’ve learned that avocados are very sensitive at the beginning, when you put them in the ground,” he said. “They don’t want to be overwatered or underwatered, so I had to pamper them in the beginning, with worm castings, compost tea and deep watering, and they finally caught on. Oh, and you can’t plant them in the heat of summer. Wait for fall or winter or very early spring, when the soil is moist.
Most of the trees in his urban orchard are 10 to 15 years old, so they need only infrequent deep watering and thick mulch to help keep the moisture in the soil. He has a drip irrigation system but uses it only on the upper orchard where he’s planted young trees and tomatoes., and a rickety system of PVC pipes propped up on bricks to collect rainwater off his roof.
When he was ready to start planting, the backyard was mostly dirt and weeds, he said. He removed most of the shrubs and nonfruiting trees — including a towering line of old ficus trees that worked as a hedge between his yard and the vacant lot next door. He kept their thick gray trunks, which act as a kind of sculptural retaining wall today, as well as a pomegranate, zapote, fig and olive trees.
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