Re: Tree Recommendations

I have a few favorite trees that have done well here in central Virginia.
The Kentucky Coffee Tree is fast-growing, strong, and casts a very nice
light shade.  It is a curiousity in having no twigs, only blunt branches.
THe leaves are doubly compound and can be two feet wide and long.  In fall,
the leaflets are shed first and disappear into the grass.  Later, the leaf
petioles fall and are the only potential clean-up problem with this tree.
However I find I can just mow over them and they disappear after a while.
The KCT is easily grown from the very large, hard seeds, provided you file
them first.  Seedlings can make 5-6 ft in their first year in a good site.
Some sprouting can occur from cut roots.  If you would like a few seeds to
try, send me a self-addressed stamped envelope (preferably of the padded
sort).

The Yellow-wood is a wonderful tree with a form like the American Elm,
smooth bark like a beech, and long hanging clusters of fragrant flowers
like the Black Locust.  In fall, leaves turn a bright butter yellow. The
only potential problem is somewhat weak branch structure, but this can
easily be dealt with by early pruning.  Because the leaves are compound and
break up before falling, cleanup is easy.

I love the Gingko, even though one of the three trees I grew from seed (and
which are now 22 years old) is a female and fruits each year.  The fruit is
not a problem if you have a good squirrel population; they love the nuts
inside and will quickly destroy the smelly fruits--which if they fall on
grass are not much of a problem anyway.  Squirrels bury the excess nuts,
and we have Gingko seedlings coming up in the flower beds.  I like the
regular, almost conifer-like structure of young individuals of this
species, which can be preserved by "limbing-up" and cutting out weak forks
as the tree matures.

The Chinese Lantern or Parasol Tree (Firmiana simplex?) is a bit more of a
problem, but worth it.  The leaves resemble overgrown maple leaves and are
quite leathery, something of a clean-up problem in the fall.  The small
tree has smooth green bark and a candleabra-like form.  In early summer
there are huge panicles of white flowers, and these are followed by unique
fruits that resemble parasols (or lanterns depending on your view). The
fruits dry well and make good additions to dried arrangements.  I might
also be able to scare up some seeds of this tree as well, but it is
probably not reliably hardy much north of here.  Another problem is
seedlings, which do come up in a lot of unexpected places.

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<bills@mail.hsc.edu>
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