after alot of research i think i've settled on the shoestring acacia. the bottle brush tree is beautiful but i'm not sure if it would do ok on the north side of the house since most everything i read says full sun. plus i'm reading alot of conflicting info on it's growth rate and water needs. i've tried growing little johns before, but with no luck. either they don't like my soil or i didn't water them enough. the australian bottle tree might be a good one, but i think it's eventual height of 40' might be a bit much. and all of the older specimens i see and have found online are much wider, leading me to believe that it spreads as it ages and might not look great with that much pruning later in life. so for the shoestring acacia, it seems to do well in either full sun or partial sun, needs very little watering, has little litter, it's airy enough to allow plantings beneath it, grows very fast, only reaches 20-30' in partial sun, and has virtually no pests or diseases here. they're also recommended for poolsides and often planted right up against large buildings to break up the wall, which tells me i shouldn't have a problem with the roots along my patio or foundation. i also think the shadow that these trees would cast on the garden below would be very pretty and only get better with a little breeze. and since the trees don't seem that heavy and rigid, if for some weird reason one did happen to fall over into a neighboring yard, i don't believe they would cause as much damage as a heavier bottle tree, pine, or palm. the only drawback is that it does not have very dense foliage, so the privacy it provides is limited. however, because of it's flexible and weeping branches it doesn't have a problem getting entangled with other trees which should allow me to plant several shoestring acacias together like a "mini grove" at the end of the patio. this should increase the overall density from the 2nd floor, and make the view from the bottom patio more interesting with more pretty trunks. i'll just have to plant them at odd intervals so they look more natural and less like a man-made row of trees. does anyone have any suggestions on the spacing of these trees? pagancat, i've never been to the DBG before. i live in Imperial Valley, CA (roughly the same climate as phx but slightly milder). i use the tucson and phx sections of gardenweb because there's more info and activity and i know if it will grow there then it will grow here. we just dont get winters as cold as yours because we live below sea level and we generally have more humidity due to all of the agriculture around us. DBG sounds liek a super fun place though, i might have to check it out as a mini-vacation :) grant, running? really? have you lost your mind?? lol

MrClint, Same deal with citrus and peach trees everywhere here in Fresno. I usually just go knock on the doors of the folks who have huge trees in their front yards, with fruit I like, and ask them if they are "done" harvesting for the year. So far nobody has ever minded me clearing it off. I usually save a bag for them, take as much as my family can eat, and then give the rest to local food closet/church charity places. sklett: really, don't sweat losing the tree. I've lost some myself and I still struggle trying to experiment with my citrus in different locations around my yard. I almost lost a few more this last summer trying to test if container trees could ever acclimate to full southern exposure without shade (nope). Just during the last two weeks I had them in my patio without light, hoping they'd do fine all winter. But I already saw leaves dropping so I had to back-pedal that plan. There is a fine balance between soil temperatures and light they receive and I was too lazy to attempt figuring it out for my micro-climate. It's possible your tree dried out. It's *very* easy to do when you bare root and put it in a new mix that has so much peat in it. I've done it, but caught the problem quick enough. So now when I build a mix with lots of peat, I have to keep misting as I go. Otherwise, you could literally pour 100 gallons of water into a bucket of peat and if it drains out the bottom, only half of your mix is wet. The inside is still bone dry. Either you have to submerge the entire container the first time or make sure the bark was well soaked so that moisture transfers into the peat. Just find some GreenAll bark, open the bag and get it wet, then set it aside somewhere until next spring. You can get a fresh beautiful citrus again when spring arrives. hopefully the bad memories will be forgotten by then and you'll be excited again. Chris

As has been said Jacarandas get big - about 50' tall and just as wide and they have roots that can interfere with mowing and lift sidewalks. However, when I was researching it I saw many pics (Google Images) of them in patios, etc. so maybe they can be trained, pruned. In my case, I found a 100' circle with no overhead wires I could spare and gave a 4' tall one a home in April. Its fast growing and is now over 6' and growing up but not spreading. Now I'm trying to figure out how to protect it if I get a freeze this winter. If I can keep it alive I'll start planning for what I'm going to plant underneath and forget about mowing problems.

Zelkova is very closely related to Elm (in fact it's technically in the same species). Zelkova is basically the Japanese version of Elm trees. (don't worry, Zelkova is not vulnerable to Elm disease, or at least it's highly resistant) Suzi: Those palms that you see popping up everywhere in Southern California are called Mexican Fan palm. It is actually considered an invasive species because its seeds are carried by the birds and often start popping up new palms in other people's yards, or along the side of creek beds. Besides the seeds often having a way of sprouting up in strange places, the actual palm tree itself does not behave "invasively" (not like ficus). In fact the shape of its fronds are fairly interesting, it is very drought tolerant, and some people in SoCal choose to plant one as an ornamental.