Trees: How to Grow Them in Your Garden

Trees are undoubtedly the largest and most long-lived plants in the landscape. Everything in your garden, including you and your family are affected by the height of trees, the shade they cast, and even the area of your yard that is bordered by their spreading branches. Choosing just the right tree, and placing it carefully, will reward you year after year as the tree grows to maturity. While smaller plants are adaptable enough to allow you to dig and move them to find the best site, trees are deeply rooted in place. Because of this basic fact of tree life, before planting, you must look to the future, imagining how the tree and your garden will appear years from now.

As part of this process, be sure to envision the mature size of a new tree. Most of the trees described in this category are well suited to fitting the scale of most houses. Very tall trees, such as white pines, are best planted in large, open spaces where their massive size won’t make a house seem tiny in comparison. Also consider the shade patterns a new tree will cast over your garden or your house, and how those patterns will change with the seasons and with the years. A specimen tree may seem expensive at first, but in time it can grow to be more valuable than all of your other plants combined. The tree that you plant today also is one of the few plants in your garden that may outlive you, and perhaps outlive your grandchildren. Of course, a tree cannot work these wonders unless it is a good match for the site. Because tree roots are extensive, it’s impossible to modify the soil to make it suit the needs of a certain tree. Instead, you must choose species that will accept your garden’s soil, sunlight, and wind without complaint.

The trees described here are generally easy to please provided their site requirements are met. Their roots are as hard and tenacious as their trunks, so they are extremely trustworthy plants. Choose the right trees and plant them with care, and you will be making a wise lifetime investment.