TREES – A landscape investment for a lifetime
Trees – To Beautify – Besides their beauty, trees have many, many uses and meanings. They shade us in summer, protect us in winter. They structure our outdoor living space, add color as well as provide homes for countless wildlife and birds. They mark our seasons and are our companions. They offer flowers in spring, fruit in summer, brilliant leaves in fall and artistic sculpture in winter.
Trees – To Beautify – But most importantly TREES ARE ALIVE! Most people don’t take the time to stop and think about that fact that a tree is a living thing. Many trees live for centuries, even millenniums. Think about the staggering number of birds, small mammals, insects and other wild life and people that depend on trees directly for their existence, be it food, shelter or both. Trees simply have great meaning and should be selected carefully because, hopefully, you will have your trees for a very long time.
Jobe’s Landscape can help you select and locate the best trees for your property in Rehoboth Beach, Bethany Beach, Ocean View, Lewes, Milford & Milton Sussex County, Delaware area.
Trees can increase your property value now! Besides the many physical and esthetic benefits of trees, they have material benefits as well. Studies show that trees can increase the value of residential property by 27%!
What are your options in choosing a tree? Evergreen or Deciduous? Flowering, fruiting? Planting for privacy, shade, noise reduction or spectacular specimen? Are you willing to wait, want a mature tree or a fast-grower? First consider the uses of trees – that will help you decide.
Trees – To Beautify – Now consider the shapes:
Shapes of Trees:
- Rounded and oval – ideal for formal uses in rows, create a corridor
- Spreading – perfect for creating a canopy over a patio or sitting area
- Pyramidal – taper towards the sky, both evergreen and deciduous
- Columnar – a favorite for screens, windbreaks, and to create garden rooms with walls
- Multiple trunks – perfect for the more natural landscape, a small planting of 3 or 5 can create the feeling of a mini forest. Excellent for planting at the corner of a house to soften the lines.
- Weeping – an ideal accent that commands attention. Very effective next to water, a pond or other water feature.
Next question to ask yourself – Do I want a formal or informal landscape?
- Formal – created with deliberate symmetry. Many trees will need to be pruned into specific shapes. Popular trees used in formal design are oval shaped and columnar trees. A formal design will definitely require a good deal of maintenance and regular pruning or shearing.
- Informal – these landscapes have flowing curves, are asymmetrical and loose edges. Spreading, weeping, multiple stemmed trunks and most any tree that is allowed to grow to its natural size and shape will work well in an informal setting. This style is definitely a very low maintenance landscape. Little pruning is required and shearing is never used in the informal style.
One last thing to consider – Evergreen trees or Deciduous? Which do I prefer?
- Evergreens – An evergreen is a plant that keeps its leaves or needles all year round. It may or may not be “green” in color. Rather, it may be yellow, blue or red. It may flower or maybe not. Evergreens grow as tall or taller than your home and as short as a ground hugging spreader. Evergreens are not just pines, spruces and junipers. There are also broad leafed evergreens like the Magnolia and Holly trees.
- Deciduous – A deciduous tree is a plant that looses its leaves in fall and creates new ones in spring. It is the deciduous tree that offers the brilliant fall foliage and many give us the beautiful spring and summer flowers.
Here are a few great seaside trees:
- Cypress
- American holly
- Eastern Red Cedar
- Black gum
- Japanese black pine
- Plane tree
- White Pine
- Crape Myrtle