Tree selection is important
BY LEE McBride, City of Madison Volunteer Arborist
Your overall landscape design and goals are critical to success. Avoid choosing with your heart a ‘cute’ tree that has pretty blooms and grows to 50 feet but tends to break in high winds and use your head instead.
There are several guides to help in your choice.
Take a critical look at the size of your home landscape or site. Make sure you understand how much soil space (ground) and canopy (branches and leaves) room you have for your project. A giant oak looks really funny in a garden home sized lot and its roots will run to your neighbor’s yard for more room. Conversely, a small crepe myrtle will never be noticed in a one-acre yard.
Take a soil test and learn the pH of your site. Many a new tree has been doomed to a slow death when planted in soil where the pH level did not allow it to drink up minerals from the soil. When the pH and plant don’t match, think of it as someone innocently giving you a glass of frothy vinegar with a straw and telling you to enjoy the taste.
Consider drainage issues your landscape may have, and if they will affect your new plants. We like to say that not many plants like ‘wet feet’. Actually, many a tree has drowned in a wet hole as roots by design take up the oxygen that a tree needs. Correcting a wet area with French drains, sub-soiling, planting partially above grade need to be installed before buying your new tree.
Understand how much available light your potential site has and learn what the light requirements are for your new tree. Sunscald and scorch symptoms are problems that occur when trees that prefer to live under other trees are planted in full sun. Morning sun is the kindest; western sun bakes just about everything in the summer.
We live on the edge of Zone 7, almost in Zone 6, so look for plants that are cold hardy here. Also remember that if the recommended zone is, for example, 10 to 7, we are at the very end of the scale. If we have a really cold winter, that tree may be damaged or stressed. Don’t forget about summer stresses either. Evergreen firs and blue spruces, while absolutely gorgeous, truly suffer in our hot moist summers. If the tag states that Zone 7 is the lowest it will live, don’t count on it being totally happy. Finally, it is recommended that you buy trees grown in this area that have proven to be acclimated to the Tennessee Valley’s climate.
Carol Umstaedter, VP Trees, Madison Beautification and Tree Board advises that to consider the shape, color, and texture of the plant and the visual effect on your home and landscape.
“Purple and red flowers will dissolve against red brick and don’t get me started about orange flowers,” she said. Also, take a look at the design of your house. If it’s formal, you might want to concentrate on more formal plants.”
There are some trees you should absolutely avoid even if they are sold in local stores and are listed below.
Silver Maple, Callery Pears, Leyland Cypress, Mimosa, Pin oak, Pines and Southern Magnolia.
Unless you have the yard space to allow the lowest branches to stay low to the ground and hide the mess and roots, don’t plant this one. Allow a 40′-50′ diameter circle around the tree for the mature branch spread. Once you prune up those lower limbs, there is an almost daily mess to clean up of fallen leaves and spent blossoms and don’t even think you will get anything to grow underneath it. In a war of water, trees always win. There are new magnolias, more compact like the Teddy Bear, that are more columnar, but they will get to 20’ tall.
Avoid a monoculture (planting only one kind) of new plants in your own yard or installing what all the neighbors have. Diversity of species is key in helping the community of trees stay healthy. Insect populations can’t build up to damaging levels as easily if their preferred hosts are scattered throughout the city. Many tree diseases are spread by insects as well as wind and rain. Make it harder for the pests and disease pathogens to hurt your neighborhood trees, use a well adapted selection that is not over used in your area.
Additional information can be found at: Aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-0814
Aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1359/ANR1359.pdf
Aces.edu/anr/soillab/
