Hi, all. I was looking to plant some small, no-spray fruit trees and bushes, specifically Russian pomegranate, Asian pear, bush cherry, rasp/blackberries, maybe a muscadine grapevine. The only spot for this is on the side of my home where there is lots of sun and not much else. Immediately on the neighboring property, there is an aging maple with a very high canopy. It does not seem very healthy and will drop branches during storms, and it seems to be a matter of time before my neighbor needs to have it taken down.

The maple roots are woody, shallow and numerous in the area where I would like to plant. My thought was to bring in topsoil and mound it up into a berm where I would like to plant the fruit trees. I know maple roots like to be shallow so to avoid smothering them, the bed would only be maybe 3-4 feet by 15'. I can see the roots in a 15' radius around the trunk of the tree, and I'm sure they go even farther than that, so it would be a fraction of the root area.

Would this work, assuming the maple will be taken down in the next few years? I plan on trying anyway but would like pointers. Should I use composty topsoil or unamended topsoil? I've read that they no longer recommend amending the planting soil for trees to encourage root spread... How deep should the topsoil be?

TIA