Hard to tell from pictures, but as just a general thing...I used to hate to cut down existing trees when I bought a new house. But over the years that has changed. My new rule is to not let myself be stuck with a previous owner's design unless of course it was a good design I wanted to keep and it was well executed. Nursing plants/trees back to health is not easy and I've had little success. I mean they are what they are and a plant that's had a rough life for many years is never going to be a prize.

Spending a bunch of time and effort working a design around a poor plant, nursing it, and it never looks great. Meanwhile the rest of the yard starts looking great and now the poorly looking plant looks even worst. After having gone thru that a few times I'm much more likely to remove the plant right away. Sometimes I cut them down right away just so I won't be tempted.

Unless you really want a mulberry in that spot I'd remove it. If you want a mulberry but in a different spot I'd plant another. They grow fast with a lot of water.

If the new design isn't to be started for a few years, or will be done in phases, then no harm keeping the trees and practicing on them.

First I'd hire a consult who is a certified arborist. They can advise you to the health of the tree and whether it needs restorative pruning, nutrition, watering, etc. What the prior owners did wrong. Or if it makes more sense to just remove one or both.

That is a heck of a bark inclusion on that one tree likely dooming that major branch in the future.

Looks like some seriously bad pruning decisions too by them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Find an Arborist

fort lauren,

I'm sad to say that if this was my property, I'd remove both of these trees and plant something else.

The tree with the split trunk (mulberry?) will fail and the trunk will break at that point. I can't tell you when, perhaps the next strong storm. Due to neglect from the previous owner it probably has a host of diseases such as Sooty Canker (a fungus) or Slime Flux (a bacteria).

The carob looks like it may have Sooty Canker as well and they both have terrible wounds from previous branch breakage that never healed properly.

I know it's hard to remove old trees, but the sooner you plant something, the sooner you'll have heathy trees to provide shade, fruit or ??? There are dozens of trees to choose from and October is the BEST time to plant. Soils are still warm and the trees have about 8 months to establish roots before the brutal summer heat.

aztreelvr
Certified Arborist

Here is a link that might be useful: Plant (tree) choices for the low desert