New and would love to talk!

Hello!
I am brand new to permies and would love to chat! I have some tree questions but first just wanted to say hi! I live in New Mexico with my husband and two cats on a small half acre "homestead". We've owned our spot for 3 years and are working more and more each year on making it better and better!

Welcome to Permies! Trees aren't my strong suit but ask away, someone on here will probably be able to help you out.

You might want to put location(something vague like New Mexico or southwest US is fine) and climate details in your profile. It really helps, especially in long conversation threads. Also, put pictures in your post. That seems to draw more attention.  

Hi Aaron, thanks for responding!
I tried to upload a photo to my original post, I guess it didn't work. I added one to this, hopefully it works this way!

We live in Albuquerque, NM in the river valley, zone 7b (but shifting towards zone 8 with the weather changes).

I am wanting to plant one or two purple robe locust trees in between a row of pine trees. There is about 30 feet in between the pine trees, I am hoping to fit 2 locust trees in that space but would that be a bit too crowded for them?

Thanks!

Hi Mikaela!
I'd like to welcome you to high desert gardening. I love it! I find it easier than the New England I grew up with. Mostly sunny days, and you control the water, which is at the ground level. So it's very controlled conditions, which makes a lot of things easy.

No slugs, which I'm phobic about. Mulch does great: I collect it from rampant Lepidium latifolium stands along the river before they form flowers or seeds every year, or in winter for more ornamental white mulch; and as my trees grow I also use prunings for mulch. I've never had damping off of seeds, although the dry air means I have to water seedlings and transplants daily till they get their roots down deep.

Oddly, it turns out powdery mildew is perfectly happy in very dry weather, and destroys many of my plants at the end of the season, despite no rain at all and very low humidity in the air, haha. Well, it usually comes at the end after the harvest so it doesn't matter too much.

For your tree question I'd recommend you post that as a post on its own in a tree forum in Permies, and include your picture. People who are all about trees (even if not interested in spending time welcoming newcomers today) will see it.

Hi Mikaela and welcome to Permies!
I can't help you much with your tree question (my climate is too different to yours) However I can help a bit with navigating the site. It looks like the image on your first post wasn't recognised as an image file - I think Permies needs the .jpg or .img on the file name. I sometimes have that problem with attachments since I use open office which doesn't always use file endings. Good try though!
Follow my signature link for useful threads on navigating the site. You could try posting in our trees forum as Rebecca suggested.