Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Trees – Plant this not that
My favorite arborist, Faith Appelquist of Treequality, shared her thoughts on the worst trees for planting. Tree selection is a big deal, they’re an investment in dollars and time.
There are lots of considerations, one of those is the mature size of the tree you select. Oftentimes, homeowners don’t see the 4 ft. sapling they planted 4 feet from the foundation growing to 40 feet tall! That’s NOT a good thing.
So, plant for mature size. Now let’s take a look at some offending trees and why we shouldn’t plant them. The Siberian Elm is, likely, one of the worst to plant in North America. People choose it because it’s a fast grower, it can exceed 50 feet in 20 to 30 years. That also means it’s branches are weak leaving messy, broken appendages.
Faith suggests a disease resistant Jefferson American Elm.
Flowering crabapples are such a welcome site until July. While their flowers, foliage and fruit are lovely, the diseases these beauties are prone to make it one to watch out for.
Faith’s list of best crabapple choices:
- Adirondack
- Beverly
- Calocarpa
- Dolgo
- Harvest Gold
- Lancelot
- Molten Lava
- Prairifire
- Professor Sprenger
- Royal Raindrops
- Tina
- Sugar Tyme
I have ‘Royal Raindrops’ in my front yard…
I planted ‘Firebird’ last year, another good choice.
Another tree that I planted many years ago, ‘Autumn Blaze’ maple, Faith calls ‘Autumn Disaster’. Ouch! It grows fast, has gorgeous fall color and is weak in the crotch.
The first big storm could take it out. So it’s still standing. But it was NOT pruned properly. In fact, the bottom branches weren’t pruned at all and should have been. Those branches are only about 3 or 4 ft. above the soil line.
Faith says, don’t take it out if it’s healthy, but don’t plant another! Instead plant gingko biloba.
And as for Silver Maple… they get weak too.
