Sorry to hear about that - it's always disappointing when you've worked so hard to get them going and they just won't do it. I had to do the same situation with a beautiful Eureka lemon - variegated leaves, wonderful blooms... on the bottom half of a 4' tree. Forget it.

Sounds like it might have been the deadly combination of the wrong tree in the wrong place. If you're dealing with caliche in your soil, could it be that there is some beneath where the plant is, not allowing the soil to drain? That would explain why one did well and the other - so close - didn't, with the same treatment.

What kind of tree do you want to replace it with?

Iam near lookout mtn (7th st/t-bird), I have a brazilian pepper tree, was planted by the nursery a year ago, it has grown from 5' to over 6' in a year. The nursery guys used an electric drill to dig a pit to plant the tree. My yard is similar to yours I could never dig through the cement like crust, would take lot of watering and chipping away for hours to dig a pit (wish i had some dynamite sticks). I water the pepper tree 2x a week and its on the lawn and gets watered by lawn sprinklers also.

I'm thinking of putting in an Elm tree. I want some leaves for my compost. If my enthusiasm wanes it will be Yellow Bells, I think the shrub is called.

We just planted a Brazilian Pepper this spring. So far no problems, but we are located where the soil has a lot more drainage and less "concrete". Good luck to you.

I too live near 7th & T-Bird and have lots of caliche however when digging the holes for my trees, I made sure that I had good drainage. I planted 2 15 gallon trees in March and they both did well with lots of new growth thru May. When June came, the growth appeared to stop and the trees are now losing some of the leaves that grew during their first two months. The leaves are turning brown, almost as if they are sun burned, before falling. Do the leaves of these trees suffer from sunburn?

My Brazilian pepper tree is doing the same thing, leaves turning brown like sun burned and falling. I think they did that every summer when it got too hot.

I just moved into a house that has a Brazilian Pepper Tree and it seem to shed a lot of leaves although it looks healthy otherwise. Is this a "habit" of the tree; i.e., will it continue to lose leaves all year round? Nothing can grow under it, so should I thin it out? It is branching out over the wall and there seems to be no stopping it!