About a year ago I cleared our west fenceline in the front of our property. It was full of brush, rattlesnakes, and busted barb wire fencing scattered throughout. Currently it's clean with a nice new galvanized fence, I love looking at it….. but my wife doesn't. She misses the privacy that the brush provided and doesn't love that the house doesn't feel like it did when we bought it. Without the brush in place we have a nice clear view at the farm field on the adjoining side.

In my continuous mission to keep my wife happy we've come up with a plan. The idea is a "fruity fenceline". Planting cattle safe fruiting and floral trees in a staggered row about 5 yards off the fence, giving myself enough room to drive down with an atv. Trees I'm considering are pear, permission, pomegranate, mulberry, and crepe Myrtle. The fenceline is about 1200 ft long.

I personally love the idea and think once established it'll look really neat and the kids will enjoy harvesting some fruit. I had grok render an image for me which has my wife sold. Figured I would need irrigation to establish it all and would also need to protect the trees from the cattle for the first two years.

I have a background in Ag and feel like I can figure this out but there must be some things I'm not thinking about. We live in Sinton, TX. Am I crazy, and what are some things I should be considering that I may be overlooking?

Make sure a 5 yard buffer is enough. Personally, I would like to have buffer wide enough for a small tractor and shredder. As those trees grow, the buffer will get narrow. The buffer would also allow you to pull a small PTO sprayer on both sides of trees if needed.

if u can, spent a couple hundred extra dollars and put some drip emitters on ur trees. the tubing and emitters are really cheap and it's very easy. you can put tons of 1gpg emitters on one line and have plenty of pressure to run them. i have planted a good amount of trees in my yard, garden and pasture over the years and there is nothing worse than having to hand water them those first 2 years in a bad drought just to keep them alive, especially if you have to haul it.

i like the idea of a wider area to drive around them too, but i think 5' will keep you safe from cows. the main thing you absolutely want to make sure of is that you keep the growing point on you trees out of reach of a cow tongue because it they eat that, it is really hard for rhe tree to get back on a roll. That can take a young tree growing gang busters and put it in slow motion.

Also, I made my own 4' tall grow tubes this year out of welded wire and greenhouse material and planted 75 6" trees in them. nearly everything lived and many of them grew to over 4' tall in 6 months. i kid you not.

crepe myrtles are great because they grow very quickly and do good in any soil. if you want cheap ones look up the crepe Myrtles guy in waxahachie. red rocket is a tall tree type variety. natchez is a good white one, too.

https://crapemyrtleguy.com/

anyways, you are speaking my language and i have been farting around doing what you are talking about since 2010. i think water is gonna be the biggest issue for the first 2 years. and one other thing is grasshoppers. be prepared to spray something if you have an infestation. They have given me trouble a couple of times because on a young tree just trying to establish roots in a drought, they can't hardly fight another battle with grasshoppers. they will eat every leaf on the tree. especially fruit trees. they aren't as hard on crepe myrtles though.

anyways, sounds like a ton of fun and satisfaction once you get some growth on them. best of luck!!

How many trees do you think you'd need for that 1200 ft? How far apart would each one be?

They aren't fruit trees, and can be more of a bush if you don't prune them, but I'd consider tossing in a few vitex trees. The bees and butterflies love them when they bloom. I assume they are cow safe…

I'm way up by Bryan/College Station, far from Sinton, but the property I bought last year has a bunch of established persimmons, crepe myrtles, and native pecan trees. I don't know much, but I would suspect that for cost, ease of planting, ease of maintaining (if you want to just let them go), fast-growing, and beauty with colorful annual blooms, crepe myrtles would be a great choice and safe for the grazing animals on the property. Native and very hardy and resistant.

I think the persimmons can have great fruit, but you have to make sure you have female varieties if you want them to produce. The trees can be brittle and can break in half easily with strong winds or even under the weight of a heavy crop year, and I think can be more delicate and susceptible to diseases that can kill them.

I know nothing about pear or pomegranate trees in south Texas gulf coast.


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In my continuous mission to keep my wife happy

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Good luck with that.

Sounds like an awesome way to add more work for yourself in 5 years and into perpetuity. I'd ignore the wishes of the wife for now.

Ragoo said:

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Sounds like an awesome way to add more work for yourself in 5 years and into perpetuity. I'd ignore the wishes of the wife for now.

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Single? Or divorced?