How to Plant Tree
Trees are the most long-lived growing features in any garden. Once they are well established, it is very difficult to move them; pruning them if they become too big is difficult, needing skilled workmanship, and is never a permanent solution to the problems of excessive roots and over-extensive shading that arise.
Since the early 1900’s the gardener’s problems in tree-planting are much easier by the introduction of new selection, of a wide new range of trees which are of moderate size. These include excellent maples, whitebeams, rowans, cherries, and ornamental apples (crabs), as well as birches.
Many of these also provide what is wanted in a small area, a tree that has more than one season of interest, such as decorative bark in mid-winter, attractive unfolding foliage in spring followed by a period of flowering, then brightly colored fruit, and finally graceful coloring of the leaves before they fall. Trees often have at least two if not three seasons of interest.
Evergreen broad-leaved trees are of particular interest in winter, and many have variegated or colored-leaved forms, and the number available is now greatly increased. All are least satisfactory in towns where air pollution takes away the shine of their foliage.
The same applies to conifers a number of which are of too great a size and too slow growing for gardens, and are seen at their best in forests and pineta.
For road planting and use in smaller gardens narrow (fastigiate) forms of many trees have been selected and are propagated as cultivars. They are also useful in planting on a large scale on account of their beautiful shape. This applies, also to the numerous weeping trees available.
Japanese Maples – Acer Palmatum, Acer Japonicum
Transplanting Trees & Shrubs in the Landscape
