@patrickmcconnell10, Hello Patrick, great to hear from you about the Anacardiaceous members and your experiences. About your question: i have spoken to Martin Crawford a leading figure in agroforestry (see his site https://www.agroforestry.co.uk/) about this subject. He told me that a pile of shredded eucalyptus would loose its allelopathy after about a year. This might not answer your question completely as roots of allelopatic plants in the soil are under different circumstances than shredded in a pile. But perhaps it helps knowing this timeframe for shredded material. Although i understand your critical opinion towards people telling that eucalyptus doesn´t harm, i have also followed a workshop with Ernst Gotsch (see my earlyer comment www.agendagotsch.com) where he talks about his experiences gathered over 30 years growing forests. And yes he mixes them with bananas and other species, cabbages, salads etc. and it seems to work more than fine. I guess this i due to the fact that he uses not only eucalyptus but a divers abundance of organic matters from various sources. And at this point in my experience it seems work quiet good! So i guess diversity is the key.. Adding more organic matter of many different sources can level things out. This is the video i was talking about https://vimeo.com/136423275

kerrican2001(z9b CA), nonaberrie(sf bay area), sandylighthouse(7), fruithack, teajm_yahoo_com Can you tell me more about fig trees? Ive never noticed them up here in the SF Bay as much as I did in Venice/Santa Monica in LA. Which varieties do well here? Do they grow tall? Can they be pruned so that they grow tall and stay narrow? I have a small front yard that is mandated to have a tree and I just cut down our existing one and am considering putting in a fig tree on both sides of the driveway. ( I started a separate thread in this subforum for it as well)

Coral tree -- Erythrina is the genus --not native, they are from South America, I think--there are many many in my OC neighborhood. They get huge and need careful pruning nearly every year because the wood is heavy and weak--many snap in Santa Ana Wind season. Also not clean, they drop a lot of stuff--flowers, twigs, branches, leaves--almost year-round. People who have them around here don't like them much, but they quickly get too big (70') and thus too expensive to remove. Until they fall over. But it gets windy here. Exactly how much space do you have? For many Orange County yards, a large shrub works far better than a "tree". A large shrub can be 20' tall and provide plenty of shade, while a small tree can be 35' and grow to large for the small lot that many Orange County houses are built on. Look at Agonis flexuosa. There is a green version and a version with very dark purple foliage called 'After Dark'. Clean, drops little litter, deep, non-invasive root system, gives good shade but does not get huge, drought tolerant once established. Not native, though. Pittosporum 'Silver Sheen', lovely with a silvery shine to the leaves in sunlight, grows fast, doesn't get huge. Also not native. The native oaks are beautiful but they have aggressive and invasive roots, eventually. The native Sycamore is simply to large for most properties. Cercis are okay, but rather mess. Catalina Ironwood, maybe. Some of the Manzanitas are lovely. A really good idea would be to walk around your neighborhood and see what looks good and what you like and what would be an appropriate size. Right away you know it will grow well at your house if it is already growing well in the neighborhood. You can take a picture and post it for identification if you don't know what it is, or ask at your local garden center. If there are power lines in the area, please don't plant a tree that will get very large that will end up like this:

Thanks Mistymorn. Misty I know the bauhinia. I have an orange one and the lady a couple of doors up has the pink one - it's leaves head my way at this time of the year - (must send the guy next door completely mad - he hates leaves). Goldhills, I think you are right about Noelene. Old fashioned plant I think. I have lots of mock orange already - have weedy tendencies I believe (not noticed in my garden), but the perfume is gorgeous. They don't seem to do too well on my soil. I'm going evergreen for the feature tree - though it will be in the north facing front yard - I hate the view of the road and other houses. I may go for a grevillea hedge (will pop over to the natives forum later). ... I may change my mind a hundred times, then plant something and change my mind again ... too much choice - that's the problem.