Trees in Your Garden – Part 2
Trees in Your Garden: A Planted Statement Part 2
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Which Tree to Choose?
Whether you decide on a tangle or a more conventional tree planting, here are a number of suggested kinds of trees-at least several of which should ideally suit your situation. Of course your particular location will have a great influence on whether you can successfully grow a particular type of tree. This list includes trees that are sometimes classified as tall shrubs.
Maples
Most of the maples are fine trees for shade on lawn, terrace, or woods walk. Bright red buds chasing the last snows are followed by tiny furry scarlet flowers, dusty pink pointed young leaves, and finally deep green mature summer foliage. Lovely winged fruit pods, like twirling ballerinas, spin to earth-here two, there five, and now a dozen. No trees are giddier in autumn than maples as they toss their flaming gold, red, and scarlet colors over a chilling landscape.
The orange-red autumn foliage of the swamp maple stands vivid against the gray trunk and a blue October sky. In wooded areas gold maple leaves light up with a luminous glow in the area where they stand. Sugar and Norway maples are among the most desirable and easiest of the maples. Keep lower branches pruned to let in the light and encourage grass to grow beneath them. The silver maple and certain others are especially beautiful when a breeze turns up the silver undersides of the leaves.
Sycamore
The fast-growing sycamore is a hearty tree, with large, heavy-textured leaves that produce a fine cool summer shade. Brown spiny seed pods account for one of its alternate common names, button ball. The limbs grow into wonderful elbows and angles, in winter the freckled brown and white trunk and branches stand out strikingly in the sunlight.
Oaks
The hardy long-lived oak brings squirrels to perform merry antics on your lawn as they hunt for acorns. The many-fingered leaves not only turn to rich copper and maroon autumn tones, but also cling during the winter, bringing a fine hue of rosy brown to the scene. The pin oak, the red oak, and the scarlet oak are among the best. Oaks may be a bit slow growing but are attractive in the process. Plant at least one, if for no other reason than to be able to go out and contemplate it when you feel the need of something solid. An oak, we learn, weighs as much as fifty pounds per cubic foot!
Sweet Gum
One of the easiest and most beautiful of all shade trees is the sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua). The many pointed leaves are fragrant when crushed and, in autumn, turn deep yellow and rich red.
Beech
The graceful Beech tree has smooth gray bark that folds in a neat tailored manner around its trunk. The Beech tree is not only fine to walk or relax under in summer but in winter the yellow-tan leaves cling and turn gold in the sun.
Whatever tree or variety of trees you choose to adorn your garden or other location, they make a great statement and addition to your home or property. Trees are long lasting, require minimum care in most cases and will offer beauty as well as shade. Whether in your garden or other area you can find a tree or many that will complement the other plants. Even a lone tree can make a great statement.