Trees Part One

The world is being warmer.  The easiest fix more trees to reduce Carbon Dioxide.  It won’t solve everything but it’ll look good helping out.   So here is the start of biodiversity suburban style.  

The Blue Spruce is a very common tree in North America.   It requires light and some drainage to keep roots from sitting in water.  They grow fast about a foot per year once they are four feet tall.   They may start slow if they are a hybrid.  The one above is of the variety “So Cool” Blue Spruce.   Every plant or tree may have varieties that offer better color, slower growth, faster growth, different shaping.   Check the tag on the tree.  It will tell you everything it needs and the size and shape.

Tree number two, the River Birch.  They come in the three to five foot size normally.   Little green leaves will shake in the wind creating a great relaxing sound.   This guy is three years in the ground and about twelve feet tall.  It’ll get to about twenty feet tall when full grown.   Unlike the Blue Spruce, it likes wet soil.   It can take standing water for a month or so.  The bark will peel and expose a cinnamon color underneath a tan paper bark.  Best part you can find these guys under $20!

Another water lover, the Bald Cyprus.  It’s unique in another way.   It is related to evergreens but it turns burnt orange in the fall, then looses is needles under early spring.   Below is the color changing, as the other trees change it holds a nice color longer.

The above is a favorite of mine.   It’s called a Franklin Tree.  Named for Benjamin Franklin as he found it growing in a woods in Pennsylvania.   It has these filament petals for its blooms.  It’s graceful and birds love it.   It’s doesn’t produce any fruit.   The Franklin Tree is a slow grower, planted at three feet tall street ten years is about fifteen feet tall

The Variegated Wegielia is a nice shrub growing to about six feet tall and six feet wide.   Difference between trees and shrubs, shrubs have multiple trunks that tend to spread.  This guy will bloom all summer.   It requires maintenance only if you want to keep  it round or a certain height.   Birds like the Cardinal, will use this for nesting because of its tight cluster of branches.  Best part is if you want another one all that’s required is bury a lower branch in dirt.  Six weeks or so later it will develop roots and can be cut from the parent.