Every tree will need watering to get established. We just got 2 nice shade trees, both decidious so they will go dormant in winter. We found the people at Moon Valley Nurseries really helpful. Just go in there, tell them what you need and they will make recommendations for you. They sell BIG trees and plant them for free with your purchase. We bought a MALE Gingko Biloba which is just beautiful with it's light green shimmery leaves, and a Raywood Ash. Both are supposed to be fast growing. One is red in fall, and the other yellow. They are drought friendly trees. Ficus Carica, your edible figs (over 700 varieties) are also able to grow 80' tall, once established, drought friendly, and gift you pretty delicious fruit! Olive trees are also drought friendly and can get really tall.

We have drip irrigation on all our trees which really saves water.

Thanks Suzi! I was actually looking at Moon Valley's flyers -- 6 huge trees for $1000?!? -- but was a bit discouraged by their Yelp reviews. Haven't gone to see for myself, though. How large do their trees come, and did you find their pricing to be reasonable? I was looking at Evergreen's pricing and 24" box trees range from $200 for mesquites to $450 for some of the others. It is hard to compare with Moon Valley when they don't list the actual size, just "Huge" or "Big" etc. Thank you!

Look at Brisbane Box. The current scientific name is lophostemon confertus, previously it was called tristania conferta which you will still frequently find it named.

It's an australian tree, related to eucalyptus, once established it is drought tolerant. I think it has a much nicer look than eucalyptus, the leaves are a fresh green and quite large. It grows fast, it has attractive bark, and is evergreen. It is frequently available through the free tree programs that some cities and utilities have, you should check yours to see if those programs are available where you live. It does have insignificant flowers and forms small seed capsules.

I've planted two for a very hot and dry SW exposure in my yard in an inland valley of LA, I'm very pleased with the look they are developing. They tend to grow more narrrow instead of wider and spreading.

Whatever you do, do NOT get an Australian Silky Oak! There never was such a messy tree ever!! Not only is there a horrible orange pollen that drops in spring, followed by tiny pods that look like beetles, the leaves fall constantly. It will grow big and provide shade, but that shade comes with a major price!

Generally speaking, the faster the growth the more water is required. The ones that grow quickly without much water don''t cast much shade. No matter what you buy, you're probably looking at a decade or a stupid amount of money for a 60" box in order to replace the mature shade trees you killed, which was obviously foolish.

I can justify watering more than usual for a year or two to get a tree established easier than I can justify having a tree that requires more water than is responsible in our climate. The drought restrictions here are very severe -- you can only water twice a week, for less than 5 minutes per drip irrigation station, and so forth -- and for good reason, our entire region is drying up. Aside from removing the palms, it certainly wasn't my intention for the other trees to die (for example, I grew up in the deep South with tons of lush magnolias everywhere so watching them dry up was heartbreak for me), but if as mature trees they cannot survive with the amount of water we can give them, then it was unfortunately destined to be. If it takes a decade to get large trees again, then so be it, or a "stupid" amount of money as you say, then maybe that's an option too, we'll see. But I am a little taken aback that asking for advice from people with more expertise than myself would get me called out as "foolish."

Palo Verde Desert Museum.

Look around your neighborhood and see what is growing well for other people.

Arbutus is also a pretty tree that doesn't need a boatload of water. Palo Verde mentioned above has very nice yellow flowers in the spring. Desert Willow and Chilean Mesquite are also low water use trees. Another I've seen in my neighborhood is the Gold Medallion tree - Cassia leptophylla.

Where are you that you are limited to 5 minutes of drip irrigation 2x a week? I know of no municipalities that have that requirement. That is essentially no irrigation. Most places have limits on irrigation circuits (lawn spray circuits), but if you talk to them they will specifically tell you that you can water a drip circuit for longer because it has a slow precipitation rate. I have designed irrigation systems all over SoCal and have never had a problen with any water districts with programming drip circuits to run for and hour or two every other week. Every tree in the neighborhood would be dead if those were your irrigation restrictions. Even if it is correct, you could have easily saved those trees with a simple branched drain greywater system. And if you are correct about your irrigation restrictions, the trees that you could get to survive those conditions will grow so slowly that you'll be long dead by the time they mature into shade trees.

I realize I have come on a bit strong and would like to apologize to sunny. This just makes me so mad. The municipalities are issuing guidelines that are directed towards the bad actors using old outdated equipment and dumping insane amounts of water on their landscapes. However, they aren't explaining to people how the numbers are derived, to whom the restrictions apply, or how you could figure out how to manage your landscape irrigation needs and still meet the conservation targets.

Spray and rotor irrigation is very common. The precipitation rate for these can easily be between 5 -7" per hour. If we assume 6", that is 1" every 10 minutes. Old controllers used to default to 10min. every day if the power and the battery went out so it was common to see people watering every day for 10 min. That's 7" a week. The monthly water demand for turf in Los Angeles at it's worst in July is a little over 7". So people were dumping a month's worth of water on their lawns every week. Typical restrictions were 3x/wk for 10 minutes. Well that's 3" per week and more than enough to have a nice lawn even with the major inefficiency of those emitters at 12"/mo. Cut that to 2x/wk for 10min and you are about at the water demand of a lawn. Cut that to 2x/wk for 5min and you are at about 50% the water demand for a lawn also known as 'moderate' water. That's about 4" of water a month. That level of irrigation will provide you a very nice perennial landscape.

Now drip systems are a different beast altogether. The fastest precipitation rate you are going to see on one of those is a subsurface setup for sand with a rate of around 1"/hr. Some will go down as low as .25"/hr. for clay hillsides. Well to get the same amount of water down as you would be allowed for a spray system, you would have to water 2x/wk for 30min, 1x/wk for 1hr, etc.

Of course you don't have to water that much. If you know what the reference evapotranspiration value (ET0) is for turf you can figure out how much you need for your plants. Moderate water use is about 50% of ET0. Low water use is about 20% ET0. Finding an ET chart for your area is very helpful in conserving water because it changes month to month.

I'm in inland SoCal. It was 97 this morning at 9am and hit 109 today and my mature Southern Magnolia survives on almost zero irrigation. I probably deep water it less than ten times per year. A mature tree should be able to survive on very little water unless it is some water hog such as a redwood or such.

Thank you to everyone for all the advice. It's so helpful to hear what has actually worked out for people... searching online has its place, but it's so confusing when a tree is described as being "drought-tolerant" in one place and then "requires moderate water" elsewhere. And of course, pearls of wisdom like Suzi/DesertDance's tip are rarely ever listed ;-)

As far as the questions about irrigation, we don't have a graywater system, though I really want one. Our laundry room is located in the middle of the house and I can't figure out how we should run the pipes, and when I reached out to a "graywater system consultant" she wanted $200 to show up and then $1500+ for the actual system... ouch. In the meantime, we did get 4 50-gallon water barrels to capture some of the rainwater we do get.

Nil13, thank you for the apology, but none necessary. I was quite upset each time a tree died, as well. It is obvious that you have a great deal more knowledge than I do... your explanation made my head spin, though I definitely appreciate it. I would prefer we still have the trees that died, and not be spending all this money for trees that have many years to maturity, but live and learn. We tried to do the right thing during this drought by letting the grass die and unfortunately it seems that some of the trees were collateral damage. We still have our grove of eucalyptus, a huge sweetgum, many new thriving fruit trees, an Australian tea tree, and more perennials than I can count. Hopefully we can add a few more shade trees that will make our summers more bearable. :-)

Plant a few native trees too. Oaks and pines are some of your best drought resistant natives as well as some of your most beautiful trees.

sunnysunday Here's some information about laundry gray water. It's not that hard to hook up. (Disclaimer - the lady in the article is a friend.) This system is approved in California but may be subject to local guidelines.

laundry to landscape

You have to give them some water

, as evidenced by the other trees dying.

I am not 100% but I think those water restrictions are for grass.

put your trees on a drip and nobody will be the wiser.

I personally don't abide by the watering law, if there is one, for my trees.

One other tree I thought of. Moringa Olieferra. Google that. The trees will grow 80 feet tall You can eat the entire tree, and it dies if you give it too much water. It loves none. I planted a few seeds 3 years ago. First year one grew 6'. We have to cut our tree back because it wants to grow tall and block our view. I wanted it to make tea, but it also makes nutritious mulch. It doesn't like to freeze. I wouldn't call it a "shade tree because it's pretty airy. Constantly covered in blooms which are also edible and they do attract bees. Of course it needed a little water it's first year, but after that none. It will easily grow in your climate. The flowers do provide a lot of litter, but we sweep them into our compost.

Here is a good resource on greywater.

http://oasisdesign.net/

I have a desert museum palo verde. For the spot, a dry xeriscape desert garden, it is perfect, never needs water, has grown in 8 years from a 15 gallon container to a 25' tree. But some things to consider:

1. The shade it gives is sparse, it has tiny leaves that are spaced apart, which is why it is so drought tolerant, but they don't give much shade.

2. It is a messy tree, the tiny leaves drop throughout the year, making a kind of leaf litter dust.

3. It is incredible when in bloom, the whole tree is a ball of yellow, but those flowers are very attractive to bees, the tree literally vibrates with bees when it's in full flower which may not be compatible with people if it's near living areas, and those thousands of flowers also create quite a bit of litter.

I would second the consideration of native oaks. If you are in an area where the coastal live oak grows it seems like a great solution to your problem. With some supplemental water a coastal live oak grows quite fast, it gives dense shade, and once established never needs much water.

So much to learn and read up on, thank you so much to everyone! I did have one question on live oaks -- I think they are one of the most beautiful trees, and it sounds like they may be a great fit, but a family friend owns a few acres of natural, untouched land not far from my house and apparently just had to cut all the live oaks down because of a disease that is wiping them out. I don't know which disease it is, but he told me that it is happening throughout the area. Does anyone know what this horrible aflliction might be, and how concerned to be about it?

You all have also inspired me to start trying again to figure out how we could design a graywater system for our house. We do quite a bit of laundry with two young kids, I would so like to have that wastewater go to good use instead of just down the sewer. Fingers crossed we can get it set up!

Coast live oak is one of the hosts of the polyphagous shot hole borer. There is also another boring beetle that attacks oaks.

oak pests

And SOD... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora_ramorum

Even still, the variety of oaks in California is amazing, each worth planting, given enough space.

For some reason I missed your question about Moon Valley. We were really happy with them. We thought the price was reasonable (especially since we had to pay $1000 to get some local tree removal to take out that horrible Silk Oak)! We loved that they plant the trees for you. We would give them a good review. They sell this "Moon Juice," which is some kind of fertilizer, and we have gone back for potting soil, etc and they are always happy to answer any questions. I didn't mention we bought a palm from them too (since you hate those trees) :-), but all of our trees are very healthy and growing. We got a Blue Plumbago shrub for the hillside and it's soo pretty! Drought resistant!

Re Reviews on Yelp or anywhere. I take them with a grain of salt. Who does reviews mostly? Happy people or Unhappy people? Mostly the displeased. Have I done an online review for Moon Valley? Nope! Too happy! BUT last night we were disappointed with our dinner and service at The Melting Pot, and I will do a review for that. Nobody should pay $168 for a meal and be disappointed!!

Good luck with your tree quest! Tell us what you end up buying!

Fruitless mulberryI would like to suggest a fruitless mulberry for a shade tree. We have had 3 at my parents house for 39 years. They are amazing shade trees. Beautiful to look at, fast growing, fairly tolerant of minimal watering, and the breeze makes a fantastic rustle through the leaves. Care needs to be given in the first few years to pick where the branching starts. You want the branches to start opening up just above head height. Once trained correctly, you can prune these down to just the 3'-4' nubs of branches every 5 years or so in the winter, and by summer, you will have a pretty good canopy for shade. The next 5 years will have an immense spreading canopy providing shade and ambience. Careful to get the fruitless variety though. A fruiting mulberry will drop fruit all over and attract pests and insects, though the fruit is excellent.

Jacaranda. Some of the Mexican flowering trees that thrive in soucal. Usually in Yellow..but some vivid pink. Cassia's. Even plain old Mimosa. If you looked hard enough you might find a beautiful new cultivar of the pink Albizia that has RED flowers. It looks so much like a tropical Delonix.

Think about flowering trees and tree's that make a medium to light shade..you can garden under them.

Well said hoovb.

Cork Oak is very drought tolerant.

Fruiting Quince is fairly drought tolerant after it has become established. Make sure to choose one that is not on dwarfing rootstock if you want a bigger shade tree.

Both these two are slow growing though, but they will grow faster if you give them more water.

You might also consider a Camphor tree. The leaves can be very aromatic.

But the roots can be an issue, so only plant one if there is plenty of room away from sidewalks and the house.

Pakistan Mulberry has beautiful foliage and would make an excellent shade tree, but can be very messy with all the fruits falling down, and the mushy black fruits do stain. Black mulberries varieties taste better than white mulberries, so that is one thing to consider. Be cautious because many of the "fruitless" mulberry selections are male, and that could create pollen and allergy issues.

It sounds like you're in a high-risk county for SOD. Various trees and shrubs besides oaks are hosts and should not be planted in SOD areas, as this disease is quickly spreading beyond control. The only way to save the oaks in unaffected counties is to remove host plants in high risk areas. I would confirm if your county has SOD before choosing a tree. List of known hosts plants: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/pram/downloads/pdf_files/usdaprlist.pdf

I also live in inland SoCal. I have several naturally occurring oaks, peppers and elderberry trees which are never watered, as well as various drought-tolerant ornamentals like arbutus and sycamores that get minimal watering. They all work very well for me. If you want a large tree fast, I would suggest a CA sycamore. They provide excellent shade, and being deciduous, they won't block the sun in the colder winter months. There is leaf litter to deal with, but I don't find it too bothersome. Plant it at the bottom of a slope (if you have one) so it gets more water.

Cork Oak is beautiful and unusual. I don't know why it is not widely planted.

Hi all, thanks so much for all the incredible advice! Having read way too late into the night on more than one occasion, I took a relatively short list down to a local nursery to see what they had in stock. Turns out they had quite a few from our list, so we looked at which ones looked the best and then picked out 3 to have delivered: Fruitless Mulberry, California Live Oak, and Ficus Nitida "Green Gem." Hooray!

The order came today, and of course, there always has to be a hiccup... instead of the California Live Oak, it seems they brought a Holm Oak: Quercus Ilex. Needless to say, I'm bummed. Question for all those experienced folks here is, how bummed should I be? I've only just started reading up on this new species, and the fact that it's not really a CA native already has me quite disappointed, but it does look like as a Mediterranean tree it might do okay in our climate. Does anyone have any experience with it?

Our landscaper is coming tomorrow to plant the trees and hook up dedicated irrigation to them to give them a good start. I'm not sure if we should try to get the nursery to correct their error before he comes, or if the Quercus Ilex might fit our needs. Thanks so much for any advice... and for helping us get this far!

So, did you keep it?

Yes, we did :-) It is apparently a tree that originates from the Mediterranean, so hopefully will do well in our climate. So far, all three seem to be doing well in the ground, and we are babying them with a slow, deep soaking every few days. Fingers crossed they will all flourish :-)