Judith: Peaches are self fertile so plant it wherever you like, preferably in a sunny location with well drained soil. Just for consideration of tree size and pruning, 15-20 ft apart if you have lots of room. But they can be closer if you are short on space. The Fruitnut

thanks! Those numbers are exactly what I was guessing. None are climbers...just beds put against the fence. It is hard to guess at some of their mature sizes since for instance the DA's get bigger here than the listed size. Thanks again. Sunni

Mesquite can send a tap root down something like 190' at least for one tree some university dug up to see. Caliche can be anywhere say in the 1' to 10' range and be thin to foot or two thick. In general caliche is not a continuous unbroken surface. I would never worry about caliche unless it's a known issue. Let the tree earn its keep and let it find the cracks it can send roots through. It's kind of like the drainage issue...if there's standing water the tree won't grow roots in that area and keep roots higher. As long as we're not talking about a bog the tree will probably find a way. A lot of these rules for planting stuff are the absolute best possible environment. But plants, like people, can handle a less than perfect world. I may have mentioned in another thread, this year I grew Mesquites from seed in a bucket with no drainage, watered everyday, so it was sitting in water. If you asked a 100 gardeners 99.9 of them would say that's impossible. Most of what you hear is just repeated from person to person, there's little actual testing or knowledge. A bit of common sense goes a long way when listening to advice.

Well, torrential rain has stopped me planting for now which gives me slightly longer to procrastinate. I can't tell you all how much I appreciate all your thoughts and advice. I actually got all my ideas for roses to plant by reading this forum. I didn't put my zone in my profile as I couldn't decide which one I am in, but luckily I found this helpful page which tells me I am in zone 10a (I am in the third pale pink blob from the left). It's an interesting observation about the heat and protection from the wall, and something I had never though of. Also, It seems I had miscalculated the shape of Mme Ernest Calvat. I was thinking of a typical climbing rose shape, but it seems to be more of a large shrub. If I will let it become a large shrub (if all goes well) then it needs to be further away than 12 inches/30cm. When you Google roses you often get mostly close-ups of the bloom and it's harder to tell the final shape, I think.