After reading about autumn blaze maple trees on here, I did some research and ending up planting two in the corners of my back yard. We purchased some liquid N-P-K that Earl May recommended, mixed it with 5 gallons of water and poured it at the base of the tree. We did not put any water in the hole or on the roots. I had read differing thoughts on whether to water in the hole. Also reading different recommendations on how much and how often to water the trees. Any thoughts from experience of watering trees would be welcome.
Shade Tree Recommendation
- Thread starter BillBrasky4Cy
- Start date
Aside from the above ground roots in my front yard and the frequent shedding of buds and helicopter seeds, my silver maple shades my south facing house nicely. I had to replace my driveway recently because the roots destroyed it, and I had to install micromesh gutter screens because the filled the gutters constantly. Should have replaced it before it got so huge.
If you are in Ames, as you drive towards campus and cross under the railroad on Stange, there used to be (and hopefully still are) a line of Shingle Oaks on the east side of Stange by the horse stables. I think there was a similar line on the west side but the west side has had construction, so I'm not sure if the west side Shingle Oaks are still there.
Main thing is to plant it right - not too deep and be sure the roots are in contact with moist soil and not with air pockets. And then keep the soil around the rootball from completely drying out this summer. I accomplished the latter by using lawn tractor to periodically (mainly during dry spells) pull a wagon of 10 5-gallon pails of water around six-acres to various trees. And a bit of mulch to slow evaporation. And maybe a ring/dam of dirt on downhill side to keep water from running off. Lotta work over the years. I have 88 tree species growing here just north of Iowa border!
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Does anyone have any experience with Tulip trees? And potentially know of any located in the Des Moines area?
Silver maples will give you something tree sized in your lifetime, but are messy. Usually fast growing trees are messy.
Haven't been walkabout on campus in decades but there used to be a grove of ginkos that included the females in front of McKay. Ancient species so separate sexes. They produced a fruit that smelled like dog poop. These days anything in the nursery is a clone of a male tree to avoid this, but man did those stink.
I inherited a really nice little ginko when I bought this house. It turned into a good one with a single leader as straight as a telephone pole.** It has grown pretty fast after it got firmly established, maybe 2-foot a year. Must like my heavy clay soil as do the neighbors big oaks.
Edit: Downside is the heavy leaves in the fall. Most years they fall in a single evening/morning after a hard freeze. Whether green or yellow they are thick leaves and not dry at all, they weigh a ton. And since they aren't dry at all they are a pain to get out of anything like evergreen shrubs or ground covers.
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** Ha, telephone pole, now that's sort of 20th century sort of thing now.
Should always plant native. Ginkgo native from Japan
I just planted a shagbark hickory to replace a giant one I lost in the derecho. Was hard to find but is a very good shade tree. The hickory nuts don't seem to attract as many squirrels as the black walnuts and red oak acorns that I have on my property. The other thing I liked is the leaves are small and don't clog gutters too bad. And compared to the oak tress they drop leaves early and all at once.
On one side of my property I have a lot of dead ash trees that I am going to remove in the next couple weeks and plant new trees this fall. I live on the edge of town along a highway and I would like have some nice looking trees that the leaves turn red and gold in the fall to show off my Cyclone pride. I am thinking autumn blaze maple trees and autumn gold ginkgos. Does anyone have any better suggestions for trees that turn “red and gold” in the fall? My Hawkeye friends are going to love this.
For an alternate to "gold" If you have space from your house look into a Yellow Popular Tree (tulip tree) you'll get the best of both worlds yellow flowering buds in spring and should be yellow leaves in the fall.
I have a pair of these fantastic trees growing well here in MN, though they are only marginally hardy here. Should be hardy in central Iowa. This nursery often carries tulip tree: https://www.countrylandscapes.com/locations
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Bitternut hickory is a reasonably fast growing (for hickory) and long-lived native species and provides solid yellowish gold color in fall. You'll hardly ever see it for sale. Here in MN Knecht's in Northfield may have a few and Out Back in Hastings may have it. For red you might try Black Tupelo aka Black Gum or Scarlet Oak. Or Staghorn Sumac which can be grown as a small tree up to 25' or so, they're remarkably vigorous and grow like crazy, great fall color, but gotta mow around 'em or they'll spread by root suckering and you'll quickly have a whole grove of 'em... https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/tree/staghorn-sumac#lboxg-10
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Pagoda Dogwoods are beautiful and they don't get massive. Stay away from Silver Maples, they are too soft and lose limbs and can kill you. I love a good Oak tree but you're waiting a long time for that and some of them aren't the greatest shade trees.
Candle stick crabs, Japanese Maples, Ruby Red Crabs if you want color.
Candle stick crabs, Japanese Maples, Ruby Red Crabs if you want color.
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I have planted lots of trees. In my experience watering a tree once per week is sufficient. You want the tree to send down roots (let it get a bit dry) but also thrive (water me now!). When it gets dry a bit of mulch or grass clippings around the tree will shade the ground and keep the ground moist. I also like to "mud" trees in when planting them. Providing plenty of water helps remove the air from the soil, so you get good root to soil contact. Air around roots is not good for the tree.
This is similar to what my nursery told me. Once per week with as many gallons of water as the size of the pot the tree came in - 15 gallon pot on a big tree gets 15 gallons, 5 gallon pot on a small tree gets 5 gallons.
I planted a shingle oak this spring. My wife's employer offerd 3 free trees to help everyone out after the derecho. One had to be an oak. I picked shingle oak because they supposedly don't have as many acorns. I already have a black walnut, white oak, and shagbark hickory. So I still have plenty of squirrels despite putting 15- 20 per year in my "witness relocation program ".
Pretty sure it's a Japanese Tree Lilac. Pretty nice understory ornamental, to bad it doesn't have much of any fall color.
I like them in multi-stem like this one:
