In Defense of Arizona’s Trees

My jaw dropped. In my hand I held my phone—a device capable of providing me the answer to any question I could possibly come up with—yet there on the screen was a seasoned Phoenix real estate agent casually advising all of her viewers to tear their citrus trees out of their yards and replace them with artificial turf.

“It’s so much easier,” she said with a toss of her very nice hair, “and way less mess.”

My heart pounded as the video continued: the agent argued that tearing out fruit trees would reduce the risk of roof rats (a real concern, I’ll admit), and that anyone who actually needed lemons could just buy them at Fry’s.

With a deep breath I steadied my hands and typed what I hoped would come across as a “respectfully, I disagree” type of comment before dropping the phone to my bed. I’d barely woken up and already my day had been ruined. (I know—I should charge my phone in a different room and spend at least 30 minutes doing “human” tasks before touching social media. Sleep hygiene regimen starts tomorrow!)

It was summer of 2024 and I’d only been in real estate a few months. Interest rates were through the proverbial roof and everyone was saying it was the slowest year in real estate since 1996. Great timing for me to start a new career, right?

I flopped back to my pillow and pulled the duvet over my head, exhausted. Between studying for my exams, learning the ins-and-outs of transactions, and hosting several open houses per week for the past three months, I was already discouraged in the business . . . now this? I knew my opinion was insignificant to the musings of the mogul who’d just unintentionally rage-baited me, but I couldn’t just say nothing. If the Lorax had taught me anything it was that someone had to speak for the trees.

Someone had to speak for the trees.

By the time I tapped “submit” her video had already surpassed 10k views and my dissenting opinion was already lost to the void. I shook my head. “Fruit trees are literally a selling point,” I whispered. At least, to my ideal client they were.

Then again, my “ideal client” at that point was basically any client. Of course I had a dream of serving Arizona home buyers interested in urban homesteading, food forests, permaculture, and sustainability . . . but I was a tiny newborn fish in the vast ocean of real estate agents in the greater Phoenix metro area. Three months into real estate? I’d be happy to work with anyone.

See, here’s the thing: I was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona, and I’ve lived here for 3/4 of my life (the other 1/4 was spent as an au pair in Belgium and a young mother in Canada). But every single one of my 30 years as a resident of Mesa, Arizona has been on a flood irrigated property with fruit trees in the backyard. It was so much a part of my life as a child that I didn’t realize until my teens that there were parts of Arizona that didn’t have flood irrigation.

In the past ten years my obsession with my property’s flood irrigation—specifically the benefits of using that system for growing a diverse food forest in my own backyard—had become more than just a casual appreciation. I was unstoppable.

I’d spent the better part of a decade joining online forums and Facebook groups about sustainability, minimalism, zero waste, and self-reliance. Everything I learned pointed me back to one thing: the more food I could grow in my own back yard, the better off I would be.

I spent months researching the varieties that would thrive in our low desert climate (Zone 9b), hundreds (okay, thousands) of dollars on bare root trees and equipment, amendments, and gardening doo-dads I felt were necessary for their success (spoiler: they weren’t), and rejoiced the day I finally harvested my very first peach from my very first peach tree (Tropic Snow will always have a special place in my heart for that).

I finally harvested my very first peach from my very first peach tree.

So by the time I got my real estate license, I was well established in the fruit-growing world and I found myself drawn, time and time again, to the types of homes and neighborhoods like my own: flood irrigated with large mature shade trees lining the streets.

But I’d only been an active agent for a few weeks before I discovered something tragic: even though flood irrigated homes in Arizona comprise fewer than 1% of residential properties, of that 1% of homes for sale, most listing agents didn’t even mention flood irrigation as a selling point in the description. And worse yet: a shocking number of agents weren’t even clicking the correct button in the MLS to show that their listings had it at all.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d begun pulling lists of flood-irrigated properties for some interested buyers I’d met at open houses, and eventually I had to inform them that even though the list was pulling every home for sale marked as flood irrigated on the MLS, it was in no way comprehensive. My data was only as good as the data of the agents uploading it.

Pretty soon every list I sent came with a disclaimer: “If you find a neighborhood you like, let me know and I’ll do a hand search for any listings that might have flood irrigation but weren’t marked correctly.”

Friends? There were hundreds.

As discouraging as this revelation was, it also sparked a tiny flame in my soul: I knew that flood irrigation was an important and valuable property feature to many Arizonans. With water rights becoming an ever-increasing concern in the Southwest, I even felt fairly confident that someday flood irrigated properties would be worth more than non-irrigated ones (full disclosure: I’m not an appraiser and I don’t have any data yet to support this theory).

And those lemon trees that the fancy agent with really nice hair so flippantly advised her clients to tear out in exchange for plastic grass?

They would be my legacy. My “why.” The foundation on which I would build the rest of my life’s work. Maybe I was too small to save those trees right now . . . but I would do everything I could to save the next ones.

I just needed to get enough people to believe me.