my sanctuary
I planted my first fruit tree a week after I bought my home, and I just keep planting as I am able. Why plant a shade tree that just gives shade, when you can plant a fruit tree that gives shade and delicious free organic fruit??
I have planted 9 fruit trees: 2 Santa Rosa plums, 3 Strawberry Nectar peaches, Gravenstein apple, Red Bartlett, Bosc pear,and a cherry that has 4 varieties grafted on), 6 table grapes ( 2 Thompson seedless, 2 muscat, one Centennial, and one Gold), a big bed of strawberries; also many culinary herbs. Laurus Nobilis (bay leaf) grows into a beautiful small tree or large shrub; it would make an incredible hedge! I also have vegetables in containers, and a garden full of flowering shrubs that feed the bees and butterflies. I have a few small water gardens in half wine barrels (with some mosquito fish) that create habitat for dragonflies, frogs, and birds. I plan to find some water chestnuts and cress that I can grow in my water gardens, too!
I have always thought it is obscene to plant a lawn in a climate where it doesn't rain at least twice a week. To use our beautiful fresh drinking water, a resource whose limitations we do not know (all we know for sure is that it is not infinite), for a thirsty "crop" like grass seems the hight of foolishness!
