The Best Trees for Any BackyardAmerican Holly. The American holly is a broadleaf evergreen tree and grows 15 to 50 feet tall. A dogwood tree brings beauty and interest to your yard all year round. It blooms during spring in a profusion of white, pink and red flowers, and then presents lush, compact foliage in summer.
Most varieties show red foliage in the fall before dropping leaves to show attractive branching in the winter. There is a variety for almost any area of the United States, so it's no surprise that dogwood is one of the most popular flowering trees in America. Adorned with purple-pink saucer-shaped flowers in early spring, the cymbal magnolia is a backyard show. Growing 20 to 30 feet tall and thriving in zones 4 to 9, it is an ornamental plant that is suitable for almost any garden.
If you're looking to add autumnal color and interest to your backyard, sugar maple is a great selection. Growing from 60 to 75 feet tall, the sugar maple features an extended canopy that puts on a vibrant show in autumn. Considered both a shade tree and an ornamental tree, it's no wonder it's an American favorite for the yard. In just five years, the silver maple tree will transform your backyard into a shady retreat.
The silver underside of its leaves not only gives the silver maple its name, but also gives the tree a shiny silver look in the breeze. It has a vast root system and a large trunk, so be careful to plant it away from sewer lines and walkways. Few trees are as romantic and elegant as the weeping cherry tree. With cascading branches adorned with white or pink flowers in spring, this elegant tree will quickly become the highlight of any backyard.
Growing from 20 to 30 feet tall, with an extension of 20 to 25 feet, it is small enough to fit almost anywhere. The red oak owes its name to the bright color of the leaves that it shows in autumn. Popular for both its resilience and beauty, it also grows rapidly and reaches up to 75 feet tall at maturity with a rounded canopy. For larger patios that require shade, red oak is an excellent choice.
The best backyard trees will provide shade, privacy, color and interest in patios of any size. When selecting the best backyard trees, it is important to choose trees that provide an elegant shape and attractive leaves with, if possible, beautiful flowers or autumn fruits or foliage. Your trees are going to be part of your life every day, for many years, so it's important to choose the right variety and plant it in the right place. When you think about your choice of the best backyard trees, one of the first questions you'll have to answer is whether you want a deciduous or evergreen variety.
If you are looking for the best trees for privacy, the evergreen Lawson cypress is a highly variable evergreen tree. Native to the West Coast, where it can grow into pencil-shaped specimens up to 200 feet (60 m) tall, the many varieties now available come in a myriad of shapes and sizes, from small, rounded buns to tall, majestic needles. It's important to review the descriptions and labels to make sure the variety you choose does the work you need. This beautiful deciduous tree, superficially similar to maples but with alternate rather than opposite leaves, is native to the eastern and southern United States.
As one of the best backyard trees, it features dark, remarkably bright foliage that is fragrant when crushed and turns a stunning deep red in autumn, or sometimes develops the color of autumn foliage into a mix of fiery hues. Deciduous Magnolia 'Daybreak' has broad 9-inch (23 cm) bicolor pink flowers in late spring with a gorgeous scent and is ideal in colder areas (zone 5-. Flowering later than many of this type, usually escapes frost. Yes, natives make some of the best backyard trees and come in a variety of sizes.
For relatively small native trees for your yard ideas, consider river birch (Betula nigra), oriental red bud (Cercis canadensis), American marginal tree (Chionanthus virginicus), or sweet laurel magnolia (Magnolia virginiana). Magnolia, crepe myrtle and pink-flowered dogwood are some of the best trees to plant in your front yard. Jacaranda is a good choice for large outdoor areas in warm climates that get tons of sun. They are resistant to pests and diseases and have good drought tolerance when established, says McFarlane.
They should not be planted near water sources or patios, as their striking lavender and blue flowers and leaves can fall into those areas, creating a little extra cleanliness. If grown in a large space, its leaves and flowers can be cut and not raked. Deciduous trees, those that lose their leaves in autumn, take on a completely new look in winter. How will your tree contribute to the winter landscape? If you want privacy all year round, an evergreen tree is a better choice than a deciduous tree.
If it is more important to cool the summer shade, select a deciduous tree. Trees come in all sizes, from soaring oaks to small fruit trees that you can grow in your yard; fruit trees that you can grow in your yard. And if you're looking for something just right for a small patio, the options can seem endless. To choose the perfect species for your garden, first measure exactly how much space you have.
When selecting a tree for a small space, consider ornamental trees, which often grow more slowly, as well as trees that come in dwarf varieties, advises Missy Henriksen, spokeswoman for the National Association of Landscape Professionals. This deciduous tree develops bright pink flowers in spring and small, violet fruits in autumn and winter for a show all year round. It's a great option to feed and shelter wildlife, who love fruits that sweeten when frozen and thawed, says Karam. Grow as a single specimen in the front yard to make it attractive on the sidewalk, or use a pair to flank a door.
Plant in a location in full sun with room for the tree to grow up to 20 feet tall and wide. BUY NOW My all-time favorite tree for a compact patio is camellia, an evergreen tree that has beautiful, bright flowers and that, as a double bloom, brings year-round color to your landscape, says Gary McCoy, manager of a Lowe's store in Charlotte, North Carolina. They are low maintenance and easy to prune. These white, pink, or red flowered beauties usually grow up to 12 feet tall and 10 feet wide.
BUY NOW Zuni is the consummate small tree for city gardens, says Karam. Use it as an accent or to cover unattractive views. Pink flowers bloom in late summer, but you can admire the multicolored bark and greenery during the growing months. A single trunk can grow up to 12 feet tall and wide in full sun, and you can plant more together for a larger canopy.
Dogwoods produce large, flower-shaped bracts every spring, and red foliage and berries in autumn. This particular cultivar is a vigorous selection from Rutgers University with remarkable winter hardiness, good drought tolerance and excellent disease resistance, says Karam. This deciduous tree prefers partial sun to full sun and can grow up to 20 feet tall and wide. Both prefer well-drained soil but can tolerate drought; river birch is the birch most resistant to birch borer, a pest that can destroy birch trees.
It's not unusual to find a 14-foot tall tree overwhelmed by a six-hundred-pound root ball wrapped in burlap and a wire cage. Famous as the state tree of New Hampshire, it is a popular nesting site for woodpeckers, blue jays, blue climbers, chickadees and swallows. Backyard trees can be expensive, but try to buy the largest specimen available to mature before you leave the property to go to a new home. Can be used where a very large tree is desired, such as a wide boulevard, wide tree lawn near tall buildings or in parks.
If you want the tree to provide flowers (or you need to provide perennial shade all year round), you should consider maintenance. When selecting the best backyard trees, it is important to choose trees that provide an elegant shape and attractive leaves with, if possible, beautiful flowers or autumnal fruits or foliage. This is one of the key elements for successful planting and this is especially true for fast-growing shade providers. Being in the presence of tall trees has positive psychological benefits, and there are few better gifts for future generations than a mature shade provider.
If you plan to use a Marylanders Plant Trees voucher, check if the tree you want to plant is on the eligible list below. Giant green arborvitae, silver dollar tree and southern magnolia are good options that create shade in the garden, and are not messy. The leaves of young trees are huge, and in the autumn the leaves fall directly from the tree without changing color. Pruning a mature tree is a highly skilled job and you have to live with the consequences for many years after the work has been done, so it pays to have a trained arborist do it for you.
Roots produce toxins that are poisonous to many plants, so you should not plant near fruit trees or gardens. . .
