I live in central Missouri(Zone 5B) and I'd like to plant a nut orchard with chestnut, improved hickory, walnuts, and hazels. The area I'd be planting already has some hickory growing on it along with some oaks and small maples. It's on a slightly sloping ridge where the soil is maybe a couple of inches of darker clay soil and then underneath is orange heavy clay soil. I imagine the hickories will do fine, but I'm concerned about drainage for the other
trees.
I read a few places on the forums here that planting into mounds made up of soil with a relatively high clay content so it bonds to the regular soil underneath can work. Right now I'm thinking that I'd build swales and plant the trees along the tops of the
berms, but how deep do you think the mounds
should be? Should I widen the berms around where I'd plant the trees? If so, how much? And since these trees will potentially be 50' tall, should I be concerned with them not anchoring well and falling over?