Since this area is not used at all, I'm thinking of planting some fruit trees on the berm. Things to consider:

1. Deer pressure. This area is far from the house. I do not want to build deer fence since the berm is also close to neighbor's yard. I can build some tree guard for young trees.

2. The berm is not very steep. But watering is still an issue. I plan to plant the trees on either side the berm, midway between the top and the foot. So the pattern is a zig-zap shape. I still need to water the trees manually at the beginning.

3. The distance between the trees should be long. So I can drive the tractor lawn mower to cut the grass.

With this situation, I'm thinking of planting some Jujube trees, like 5 of them. Then two chestnut trees at the end of the berm. The chestnut trees may be too large. I can't think of anything else. I could plant 7 Jujube trees, but that is too many for me. The trees have to something deer does not have a lot of interest. I know I can't plant apple trees here without a deer fence.

Do you know for certain what's in/under the berm?

We have another berm at the far end of the yard. Builder planted more than 20 trees on that berm, as wind breaker.

Of course since this is the soil dug from the building site, it is not rich. 10-year lawn mulching helps in some regard.

Jujube is drought-tolerant. From what I read, it is not very demanding with soil. It is also relatively maintanence free.

Other than that, I can only think of nut trees. The trees should be landscaping type, not orchard type.

Here, peaches planted on flat level ground decline from too much water on their roots most of the time. NJ may be different. I think soils are lighter in NJ.

All my fruit trees are on a gentle slope. So they do not have wet feet.

The builder built the berm to slow down the rain water. Our land is higher than our neighbor's land.

Now I run out of real backyard room. I just dug out my perennial beds and relocated all bulbs and daylilies to other area. This area is a very large area, but we never go there. Only kids sometimes run over there to play.

My concern is mainly drought. NJ summer can be brutal (just not this year). I lost a couple evergreen trees on the other berm. The soil is mainly clay, not rich. It is hard to run water hose over such a distance.

Is persimmon tree drought-tolerant?

Persimmon does however (American) grow very nice and straight with very pretty bark. Everything loves dropped persimmons too raccoons, skunks, possum...you name it.

I should think they can only be a disadvantage for most species in droughty (very sandy or hydrophobic) soils, but one as wide as your berm would allow the creation of individual "craters" to help each tree establish if this is the situation. If drainage is good this can be helpful even in the flat to make watering easier until trees are established.

Chestnuts are full sized trees and need about 30' space as a minimum. I'm experimenting at keeping mine more compact with pruning but I don't know how that will work long term and it's a lot of work. Once they plug in they grow like crazy.

If you plant chestnuts, I recommend you get your trees from a source that has grafted trees so you can get really good nuts from them.

Side view. Neighbor's house in on the back. Photo still does not cover the entire berm.


Front view.

Top view.

Another berm with mostly evergreen trees.