I need tree advice

[auntie]

Help!

I lost a large Hoopsi Blue Spruce in wet weather 2 years ago and need to replace it. My house is a very traditional reproduction colonial. Some of the landscaping is boring but I have been tweaking it over the last 8 years.

This tree would be in the front corner of the house. The tree next door, close because it's a cul de sac, is a Kousa Dogwood. It has large butterfly bushes behind it, various evergreens, a magnolia and roses. and perennials in front. It's sort of cottagy in spirit. I have shrub roses, laurels and a Stewartia at the opposite corner. These are fairly new/small, so scale can be small. I am in USDA region 6.

I was looking today and saw-

1. A Fat Albert Blue Spruce.

2. A Variagated Redtwig Dogwood grown in tree form (the tree will be adjacent to a swale, but elevated a bit.

3. A Japanese Dappled Willow with variagated leaves in tree form- white, green and tints of pink

www.midwestgardentips.com/hakuro-nishiki_dappled_willow.html

[treedimensional]

Spruce likes cool night temps and low humidity. Do you have that? They also like higher elevations. The other two plants do well in wet areas, nothing like Spruce.
I love Spruce too, even though they don't do well in the climate here.

[auntie]

I'm so glad you popped in.

Not enjoying cool night temps right now. I'm suburban Philly, it's pretty temperate here. The previous spruce did well until we had a ridiculously rainy spring and it just toppled over. It was as tall as my 2 story house at the time.

Will I have to fight to keep the other two in tree form? I noticed the Dappled Willow had a large number of suckers around the base. Of course, my ancient ornamental cherry, Not sure what variety it is, but it's massive. Damned thing is about 30' high and maybe 40' wide. It's like Godzilla.

[treedimensional]

Jun 30, 2012 6:54:53 GMT -5 auntie said:

I'm so glad you popped in.

Not enjoying cool night temps right now. I'm suburban Philly, it's pretty temperate here. The previous spruce did well until we had a ridiculously rainy spring and it just toppled over. It was as tall as my 2 story house at the time.

Will I have to fight to keep the other two in tree form? I noticed the Dappled Willow had a large number of suckers around the base. Of course, my ancient ornamental cherry, Not sure what variety it is, but it's massive. Damned thing is about 30' high and maybe 40' wide. It's like Godzilla.

The willow and the dogwood are shrubs, and yes, you will have to prune suckers to maintain the standard (tree) form.
About the spruce failure- container grown trees are more likely to blow down than BB trees. This likelihood may diminish over time, but it might never diminish. This is being researched now. Also anything that is top-heavy is more likely to blow over.

[auntie]

Interesting about the container plant thing. My parents built the house and did the initial landscaping in 1986. I actually helped them plant the spruce which was about 4' tall; it was B&B and weighed a lot. Hence me being called in to help. I recall it being expensive at the time. My father paid $250 for it and he's the cheapest man in America. The day the tree came down, DS and I saw probably a dozen or more down in the area- mostly large old pines with a few Bradford Pears that hadn't ever been pruned. No loss there.