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High Water Use Plants in the Low Water Landscape - Part II

© Max Dalrymple

Last week I wrote about productive high water use trees in the City of Albuquerque's list of plants that grow in New Mexico. I indicated that I'd like to find room for the following productive high water use trees:

Pecan, Apricot, Crabapples, Peaches, Apples,

This leaves the question: "How much space do I have in the beginning for high water plants if 20% of my landscape is reserved for them?" Keep in mind, this is a much tougher standard than that of the City of Albuquerque xeriscape TM program, but is designed to give me some estimate of what can be done with high water use plants in a low - water landscape.

I'm planning on building my home on acreage, but I'll assume I'll have the same area for my home as the average Albuquerque lot. According to Douglas Bennett of the City of Albuquerque there are an average of 10 dwellings per acre and the average house is 1,500 square feet in Albuquerque. A tenth of an acre is 4,356 square feet. Subtracting 1,500 for the square footage of the home, that leaves 2,856 square feet of landscape area in the average Albuquerque home. The figure I'm looking for is 20% of this, or 571.2 square feet. This is an area that is approximately 24 feet by 24 feet.

Stark Bros. call its semi - dwarf apple tree the "most productive tree." It grows from 12 to 15 feet tall, and apparently about 2/3s of that, or 8 to 10 feet in width. Theoretically, by planting on 8 foot centers, I could plant three rows of three semi - dwarf fruit trees in a area 24 by 24 feet and have very little of the ground area beneath the trees outside that area. That's nine semi-dwarf trees or I could plant more dwarf and miniature trees.

On a practical level, I'll probably plant my trees much further apart than that, probably in three lines of three along the south of my house and along my driveway. Trees in the wild around here tend to grow better at the edges of dirt roads. It is thought that planting them by themselves produces less competition for root water than planting them with a bunch of other things. Obviously, if I slope my driveway and my roof in the direction of my plants, I can also drain more rainwater into their root systems.

By planting them in a line, I'll also be doing some of what the xeriscapeTM programs recommend: I'll be planting my high water use plants in high water use zones. If I am able to plant pecans, I can even follow the recommendation of planting on the north corners of my house, since pecans are very tall trees and will quickly get large enough to get sunlight, even on the north.

The copyright of the article High Water Use Plants in the Low Water Landscape - Part II in Landscaping in Dry Climates is owned by Max Dalrymple. Permission to republish High Water Use Plants in the Low Water Landscape - Part II in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.