How to pick the perfect tree for your home landscape

The size of your lot will determine what size tree you will want to have. If you have a half acre or more of land with a large house you could have several trees of differing sizes without worry of planting a tree that will overwhelm your yard or home. You may want a row of pine trees toward along the back fence as a windbreak and also to provide shelter and food for songbirds. In the front yard you may like a Flowering Peach tree for its spectacular spring time show. You may want a tall Sugar Maple to cast much needed shade during those blistering hot summer months easing the cost of cooling your home. In the back yard you could have a few fruit trees giving you freshest fruit ever.

On the other hand, if you only have a tiny space and a small home a huge tree will not be suitable nor desirable. A small home will be overshadowed, literally and figuratively speaking, by a large Live Oak tree. A small ornamental tree therefore would be the better choice here. If you only have a minuscule patio you can still have a tree. It just has to be a small one like a dwarf Alberta Spruce or a Japanese Maple both of which take quite well to planting in pots. Choose a tree appropriate to your available space.

Choosing a tree requires looking into the future. That is to say you will need an imagination to enable you to see that tree after it has grown for many decades. The little sapling you plant this spring, after all, will not remain in all likelihood, a little sapling unless you have a dwarf variety or use careful pruning to ensure it remains small. You’ll have to imagine what your home will look like with a hulking tree beside it. Does it seem smaller and completely over-shadowed next to a Weeping willow? Does it look more imposing, austere and kind of bare with twin Pee Gee Hydrangea trees on either side?

It is good to remember that a typical one story home is about 15 feet high, a two story building is about 25 feet high and three stories is approximately 35 feet tall.  The typical Maple tree at maturity is 40 feet tall, a Douglas Fir 60 feet and a Honey Locust about 100 feet high. Can you and your home handle that much tree?

Choose the tree to match the home and you won’t have to worry about being crushed under a huge, fallen tree or broken branches. In addition a smaller tree beside the home keeps the rain gutters from collecting fallen leaves, seeds, nuts and twigs.

Trees have many purposes so you’ll have to decide what yours is.  

You may like to provide shelter for songbirds and food for chipmunks and deer. You may want a tree for a stunning floral display in spring time. Perhaps you would like to stop that fierce winter wind from rattling the windows. You may like protection and instant cooling from the hot summer sun. You may want to screen the unsightly view of your neighbor’s rusty old Buick on cinder blocks. You may like to form garden rooms. You may want to grow your very own fruits and nuts. Or you may want trees that provide a combination of all these.

You have to know in which USDA zone you reside. This will tell you how cold and heat hardy you need your tree to be or else all your efforts in choosing and planting the tree will be for naught. Case in point, if you live in zone 3 don’t expect a palm tree that is hardy only in USDA zones 10 and 11 to survive your brutal winter months unless you're planning on bringing it inside for the winter.

On the flip side if you are in the tropics a Douglas Fir, Norway Spruce or White Pine will not make it there either as they prefer cooler zones 3-8. The Tropics is just too hot for these particular, cold-hardy evergreens.

Know your zone and choose a tree accordingly.

This may be simple enough but really, do you know exactly what you want? You may think you want to block the view of your grouchy neighbor and that row of Concolor Firs will definitely do it but you may be blocking out more than your neighbor. Do you like watching the sunset or perhaps the sunrise? A grouping of trees once they grow substantially, may in time block that precious view.

And what if that annoying neighbor should move away to be replaced with a sexy swimsuit model and her equally alluring body-builder husband? You still want to block that view?

No, you can never tell what the future brings but it makes it a tad easier if you know exactly what you want. If you want peace, quiet and your privacy and to heck with everything else then go on and plant yourself a barrier keeping the world out and you and your family safe within.

Why know your neighbors? Purely as a precaution for possible bad feelings, feuding and even legal action. If your neighbor has a prized sun-loving rose or vegetable garden and you go and plant a huge shade tree that blocks the sun from these plants and consequently they die, do you think your neighbor’s going to be happy? On the flip side would you like it if your neighbor planted a tree right by your property line that shed loads of smelly, inedible fruit and tons of leaves you have to rake up?

It’s not so good when you are on the receiving end of a neighbor’s inconsiderate behavior, is it? Do onto others as you would have them do unto you is a good rule to go by here. Be considerate and think of the future size of that tree and its effects on everyone, not just you, and you may be voted the best darn neighbor ever and still have a pretty awesome yard. One, ironically, which your neighbors will envy.

This may seem tricky if you know absolutely nothing about trees but there is always help for those who ask for it. Arbor Day Foundation can provide you with a handy booklet free of charge. Read carefully through this and you will know the approximate size of every tree at maturity, their drought tolerance, what type soil they require, how fast they grow, their hardiness zones, how wide they cast shade, whether they produce edible fruit or nuts, if they offer food and shelter for wildlife and even how long they live.

With this handy booklet you will find trees for attracting wildlife, for use as windbreaks, those that produce edible fruits and/or nuts, those with a showy bloom, those that provide shade and those perfect for a tree house or tire swing. Arbor Day Foundation  also sell trees and shrubs at bargain prices so anyone can afford to plants trees. Call or send for their Tree Book which is just a small magazine but one loaded with everything you need to know on some of the most readily available, most desired and most beautiful trees for the home landscape. Don’t want to kill a tree? Then forgo the booklet and visit their wonderful website offering good useful information on all sorts of trees for the home landscape.

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