An Example of High Density Planting; Our Tropical Zone Mesa, AZ Zone 10a

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Good morning everyone. It's Bob the Green Man from Chatona Muff in Mesa, Arizona, zone 10A.

[00:00:08]Today we're going to talk about an example of high density planting and specifically this is our tropical zone.

[00:00:21]In this 50 square f foot space, we have 19 trees actively growing. There are also a couple of seeds that I've thrown in here to see if they'll take.

[00:00:39]But today, we're going to walk around.

[00:00:40]We're going to talk about each tree um that's in here. We're going to talk about why those trees are in here. and we'll show you what it looked like throughout. I'll I'll cut away from the video. We'll put up some old pictures and we'll kind of give you a sense of how things are growing and why they're doing so well. All right. So, this originally was a vegetable garden, and I started the vegetable garden in uh 2021.

[00:01:19]And I did that vegetable garden until the spring or through the spring of 2024.

[00:01:29]So originally, uh here's a video of what this this back area looked like.

[00:01:38]So, in the fall of 2024, when we took out the spring and summer garden, I turned this into what I envision it.

[00:01:49]Now, our first trees that we put in the ground were this sapia and a brown sugar fruit. We put this in the ground. Uh, we started this all in um, November of 2024 and I put this sapadilla in the ground.

[00:02:14]Great looking tree. Um, it is actually flowering. See if we can find some open flowers.

[00:02:22]We've got some flowers that have possibly been pollinated already.

[00:02:28]We will see if they were pollinated. Um, and I started back here because this tree, this is west facing. So, we're we're looking to the west. This tree can take full sun uh once it establishes itself.

[00:02:53]The next tree that we put in was this uh tropical white guava.

[00:03:02]Now, this was a birthday present from my mom. Uh I put this in in November of 2024. It was just a little stick.

[00:03:12]Okay, so we just had those two trees here over winter.

[00:03:19]Guavas, they don't need any protection.

[00:03:21]For the first winter, I did throw a frost cloth over this guy. Uh when we were planned to get below 35, I think we got down to 33 or 34 that year.

[00:03:37]No issues with it. February comes around and we moved this black sapote. Now, I had this black sapote in the pool area, and if you've seen my last videos, I had it kind of where the uh peanut butter is now, next to the groomy chamba and the mame.

[00:04:03]We moved that out of there because I envision this area as evergreen only. And this is an evergreen. And this is the only tree here that has deep roots. Uh, every other tree in this area has a shallow fibrous root system. Then we added our two bananas. There's a double moy over here.

[00:04:34]And these were little starter bananas.

[00:04:36]And by starter bananas, I mean they were about that big.

[00:04:45]And here's a picture of those back when we first added them.

[00:04:50]And then here is uh gross Michelle.

[00:04:59]And the third tree that we planted in that time was this Jamaican cherry.

[00:05:06]Now the Jamaican cherry was just a little guy and If you know anything about Jamaican cherries, these things grow absolutely insanely fast. Uh we went from oh, I'd say a foot last year to 15t in just one season. And I ended up cutting him back to about 6t tall because he was too tall. they grow too fast and then they tend to fall over in the uh monsoons.

[00:05:43]So I put him I cut him back and allowed him to focus some uh root growth so that he can withstand the monsoons.

[00:05:57]The next tree that we put in the ground is this a beu or you could consider it a yellow star apple. Uh we got this from Sheamus Olri Green Life here in Phoenix and this has old sunburn on it. We're going to talk about that uh here in a second.

[00:06:27]Uh the next trees came up in the front here.

[00:06:33]We added a white sapote. This is a subell.

[00:06:39]Doing absolutely fine. No issues. Next to it was a black surname cherry.

[00:06:55]The next tree that we got was our first tree, well, second tree that I ever purchased online. Uh, this is Rolinia.

[00:07:03]It's, uh, in the Anona family.

[00:07:07]And we got this as a little threegalon.

[00:07:12]And this tree is looking real, real healthy.

[00:07:17]Uh this was purchased from Everglades Farms in Homestead, Florida.

[00:07:24]We then added uh this cheramoya. This is a Vietnamese cheramoya.

[00:07:30]Apparently they are a little bit more hearty than the bay.

[00:07:40]This is going to be its um first full summer. This was added u at the you know the the onset of summer last year.

[00:07:56]Next tree we added was this sand hole.

[00:08:02]And sand hole they did not like the cold. Uh anything under 40° caused this but it came back really nicely and is growing real well. putting on a plethora of new growth.

[00:08:18]Behind it, if I can sneak in here, is a sour stop.

[00:08:25]Now, why did I tuck a sour stop underneath the guava and black sapote? Well, sour zap they these leaves. Get down here.

[00:08:40]This new leaf is like paper thin. Our sun will destroy that leaf in a matter of hours, especially in the summer. So, I wanted it to get some roots down and have other trees help protect it until it got bigger and then it can fend for itself. Cuz these bananas are not always going to be there. you know, that one's going to flower fruit and it's going to get cut down. We'll have another banana, but there will be a time when this guy is in uh fuller sun, more full sun than it is now.

[00:09:27]After that, we added this strawberry papaya, which is also known as a solo papaya. It is doing real well here. These can take full sun, but they also enjoy a little bit of shade every once in a while, especially when they're young.

[00:09:54]After that, we added a quai seedling.

[00:09:59]And this is a cousin to jackfruit.

[00:10:05]and quaimon do really well in our climate.

[00:10:09]Um, they can take our sun, no problem.

[00:10:14]And they can take uh our winters. They can even take uh 9's winter. Uh they can go down to as low as 22 or 23° when they are established.

[00:10:36]Next, I ate a mango from the market and planted the seed. And this is what has come out. This is a uh Kent mango seedling.

[00:10:54]Uh, I have not decided if I want to graft onto this or just let it grow and then possibly see what the fruit brings. Um, it is doing real well. Mangoes can take shade when they're young. When they're older, they want full sun, which when this tree gets bigger, it should be able to get quite a bit of sun. Uh we are, let's say, May 12th, 7 a.m., and the sun's starting to pop over the house, so he's going to get a good bit of sun throughout the day.

[00:11:39]And here is a pineapple.

[00:11:42]I just took this off the top of a pineapple that we got from the store, put it in the ground, and it is actively growing. As we see, pineapples, uh, they can't really take full sun here.

[00:12:00]So, that's why we have it underneath the canopy of these bananas.

[00:12:10]Next, we added a couple more guavas.

[00:12:14]These are actually guava seedlings.

[00:12:20]And uh we got these from Tropica Mango.

[00:12:25]This is a red Malaysian little seedling.

[00:12:30]Our next guava we put in is this Thai white guava.

[00:12:36]And this thing once it got its feet under it has grown quite nicely.

[00:12:47]Then I ate a peanut butter fruit and I threw the seed in the ground and here that is that has taken off. We've also put a couple of cherry of the Rio Grand seeds and a uh Surinam cherry seed in here. We'll see if they take off or not.

[00:13:14]The last tree we put in here was last uh November or October, one of the two. Uh and it was this blackberry jam bush.

[00:13:28]It's blackberry jam. Uh if you've ever seen it, little yellow balls, maybe about like that. And on the inside is a pulp that looks like blackberry jam.

[00:13:41]All right. So, that's all the trees that we put in here.

[00:13:46]Why did we put those trees in here?

[00:13:49]Well, I mentioned a little bit earlier, I wanted this to be evergreen. though these trees are not going to lose their leaves. Another reason I did it is because all of these trees are shallow fibrous root systems. Now, initially when I put in my irrigation system, when I first planned this, I was just going to have irrigation here and then I saw how well it was doing for this that I added it to the rest of the yard.

[00:14:21]Shallow fibrous rooted trees need consistent water. Once we're over 90°, these get watered every day. 6 days out of the week, uh each of these bubblers putting out 12 1/2 gallons.

[00:14:37]And then one day a week, we're doing a deep water. And each bubbler puts out 25 gallons of water. These bubblers aren't specifically for a single tree, okay? Uh there are some examples where I have stuff that's growing to the bubbler, but as a whole, I mean, this bubbler right here feeds black sapote, cheramoya, that guava, and it even could feed the sour over there because of how this is kind of sloped in the the water will catch there and then it will run throughout. So, we are keeping the ground moist and we're keeping the water where it needs to be. It It's not going to just, you know, saturate this tree. It's also going to help the other trees around it.

[00:15:50]Sun protection. What did I do for the first year with sun protection? Well, most everything back here can take our sun no problem. There were some trees like this sadilla that I put up a shade sun shade for it. Um just because I wanted the tree to work on putting roots down. Uh same thing with the au. Uh that sunburn is from its first summer here that it did not have it had sun protection but some of the leaves were growing outside into the sun and they were getting burnt. Relia same thing we put a shade over this had no issue.

[00:16:36]This did absolutely amazing humidity and how planting like this raises the humidity. And it's a perfect example. We have a weather station right here and this area stays at least 25% humidity all day.

[00:17:01]And when we water, especially when we do our uh deep water, when it's, you know, these bubblers are on for 10 minutes, we are keeping the top of the soil and the mulch nice and moist. And as that evaporates, it gets trapped by the trees and keeps things uh humid back here. And that's the biggest issue I've had is just pruning. You know, these banana leaves that get in my way of walking.

[00:17:38]Um, but other than that, you know, no issues.

[00:17:42]Um, I actually had a great question about microisa. So, we planted all of these with microisa in the hole.

[00:17:54]Now, if you've planted stuff, but you didn't use microisa, you can actually add microisa to your soil after planting. So, what you can do is move all your mulch away and you can get micr and put it into water and make like a slurry and add the microisa to the ground and then put your mulch back on top. And as the uh soil gets water, that will push the microisa down and it will start to do the same type of thing as if you were to put it in the ground. All right, guys. That's a video for today. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope you uh got something out of it. Go out and plant stuff close together. Uh it's going to be beneficial in the long run.

[00:18:46]Yes, you'll have to do some pruning.

[00:18:48]Yes, you originally have to do a little bit of planting, but when you plant young trees like what we have here, the older trees can protect them while they are young.

[00:19:05]Anyway, until next time everybody, hope you have a great day.

[00:19:10]We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.