Best fastigiate trees and shrubs

I have a number of fastigiate trees that I planted more than 25 years ago.  My
favorites are:

Acer saccharum 'Monumentale'.  This tree is now about 30 feet tall, and is, at
its widest point, about 3-4 feet in width (including leaves).  My neighbors call
it "your telephone pole maple."  It is sometimes sold under other cultivar
names.  A very nice one, almost as tall as mine, can be seen in Washington, D.C.,
on the south side of A Street SE, in, I believe, the 500 block.  I bought mine
from the late Henry Hohmann, the founder of the famous Kingsville (Maryland)
Nursery (which expired when he did) about twenty years ago.  He is said to have
introduced more plants to the United States than any other person.  Perhaps his
most famous introduction is the Kingsville boxwood.  My telephone pole maple was
about five feet tall when Mr. Hohmann sold it to me, and had a few side branches
that were about six inches long.  As it got taller, the side branches got longer,
and some of them are now almost a foot long.  but I was delighted to discover
that when they got to be more than six inches or so long, they would turn and
grow vertically, for another few more inches, and then stop growing,   At twelve
feet, the tree disappointed me tremendously, because it sent out two side
branches that, although they turned upward, absolutely vertically, when about six
or so inches long, they continued to grow, unlike all the other (short) side
branches.  Today, each of the two long side branches is about 18 feet tall, so
that the whole tree, although only four feet wide, has three trunks, starting at
the twelve-foot level, and gives the impression of a giant menorah.  I have long
since forgiven it for the two extra trunks, mainly because they are perfectly
parallel to the main truck.  I have finally decided that I like it more than if
it had kept itself to a single trunk.

My two other favorites are a fastigiate golden rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata
fastigiata), and a fastigiate Japanese dogwood (Cornus kousa fastigiata).  The
former is about twenty feet tall, and the latter about 17 feet.  Because the
Japanese dogwood flowers face upward, mine, like all Japanese dogwoods, is best
viewed from an upstairs window when in bloom.

Fastigiate trees are a great boon to collectors.  Because they take up relative
little garden space, you can have a greater variety of trees per acre than would
otherwise be the case.

Harry Dewey, zone 7a, Beltsville, Maryland USA

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