LOS ANGELES -- Artist-teacher-gardener Jose Ramirez never considered a lawn for his Boyle Heights neighborhood home. Instead, he created a smorgasbord landscape of fruit.
This is no ordinary orchard, with trees carefully spaced in neat rows. In a densely built residential neighborhood, he's crowded more than 250 fruit trees along winding paths; multiple varieties of pluots, apricots, nectarines, apples, citrus and avocados are planted so close that their branches intertwine. Just a few steps out his back door, Ramirez and his family can pick fruit from 10 trees around a small deck — Bearss lime, papaya, cherimoya, mango, apple, guava, Meyer lemon, mandarin, nectarine and ... cinnamon?
"You use the bark, and I haven't taken much from that one yet," Ramirez said, a little apologetically. "It's still young and kind of an experiment."
