Talk to Me About Trees

[MrsMB]

We want to plant trees in our front and back yards. I know a LOT is involved with selection......what grow best in the area? Size? Etc?

SO....Where to start?

(Also, I challenge all WC'ers to start their own posts. Let's revive this place.)

[katespade]

As someone who knows nothing about trees, if I were considering planting some I would go to a couple of local nurseries and ask for their opinions. I wouldn't even know where to start. Haha.

[HoneySpider]

I don't know, we were never very good at this when we had a yard! I would just go to the nursery and pick out something pretty

Would you have any use for fruit trees? We always wanted lemon and lime trees because we would use the fruit. Sadly the only one we ever planted was in memorial, womp womp.

[travelbug]

I agree with the others, I'd probably just go to a nursery and ask what they had and pick something I liked the look of.

[Deleted]

I recommend looking up the zone you live in. I'm in zone 5. I don't really know what this means, but it will help with identifying what kind of tree will do best in your climate.

Are you looking for a big shade tree or something smaller? I have some young red maple trees in my yard that I really like.

[MrsMB]

Mar 1, 2015 18:09:54 GMT -5 HoneySpider said:

I don't know, we were never very good at this when we had a yard! I would just go to the nursery and pick out something pretty

Would you have any use for fruit trees? We always wanted lemon and lime trees because we would use the fruit. Sadly the only one we ever planted was in memorial, womp womp.

I DO want peach trees in the backyard...because i live in the country...gonna eat me a lot of peaches!

@moonbeam i know i want a magnolia in the back. As far as the front goes.. .i cant make up my mind. I think we will just hace to visit a nursery.

Sent from so-called "smart" phone. Please forgive any errors!

[katiek]

Before you go to the nursery, you should think about some things you want in your trees. My parents just did this last year, and they wanted trees that grew fast and trees that turned red in the fall. Might be good to give the nursery people more to go on

[MrsAggie]

We went to a local nursery during a sale that was advertised in the paper. They actually have a landscape designer on staff so she talked to us about our style and what we liked. We requested low maintenance. Another thing to consider is if you want evergreen, which means it'll have leaves in the winter. That means it will still be pretty in the winter and less raking in the fall. However the color changing trees lose their leaves so they're sometimes prettier in other months.

My only recommendation is always say no to pine trees. It's a never ending battle with pine needles. Poor H didn't realize what he was getting into when we bought the house lol.

[ewall]

We have a dogwood tree in out backyard which has the gorgeous blooms in the spring.

I was going to recommend black cherry because we had one in our backyard (had to remove due to storm damage) but then I realized there is one across the street from us. It drops tons of fruit on our driveway and results in stains. So if you go with a fruit dropping tree, put it somewhere you wouldn't mind having debris on the ground.

[awick14]

I love trees with color, wether it be from the flowers or the leaves itself.

My only suggestions are to make sure you know how tall it will be 20-30 years down the line, and that you think of placement of the trees carefully.

In the backyard it won't be so bad, but in the front yard just make sure that they are positioned so that they don't block the view from your front window, unless you want it too. Make sure you don't plant it under power lines that run to your house.

We are learning from the past owners mistakes. Two of the trees in our front yard require a lot of maintenance because they are both planted under the power lines in our yard. So they have to be trimmed yearly to make sure they don't touch the power lines.

We also have a tree that's planted off to the side of our front window, and I wish that it was planted about 4 feet in the other direction, that way it would block the majority of the sun coming in the window in the summer. (I know this one is me being picky as they can plant where ever they wanted, but it's just something to think about.)