Trees, Trees....Glorious Trees!

There is an oak on our block that I absolutely covet.

It's a huge, wide, amazingly symmetrical, ubertree. I hope it lives forever.

Amazing broad black oak by the old biochem building here in madtown, soz -- dunno if you've ever noticed it. Four stories tall, with branches stretching broader than the tree is high, dark dark bark and brilliant yellow leaves in the fall. A stunner.

As to the rest (though I'm no herbophile)...


What is your favorite garden tree?

Cherry for the blossoms, lemon or peach for the product.

What is your favorite wild tree?

Coastal redwood -- Sequoia sempervirens (always living). Not the squat one of the postcards but the tall (very, very tall) slim ones. Not a lot of old ones left, though.

What is the most unique tree you've ever seen?

Hmmmm...........

What tree do you have a picture of that you can't identify?
Where do you go to find trees to spot and wonder at?

Yeah, I'm really not an herbophile...

Soz, post a picture? I loooove english oaks and pinoaks in landscaped areas and our native oaks in all their varied settings. In short, I love oaks (and their acorns).

I found a tree in Mt Auburn Cemetery (not just a cemetery for the ages, but also a park and arboreatum) which I had never heard of. I present Korean Evonia (or tetradium danielli devonia) - a fast growing, medium sized tree with great attributes (it's sustainable!). It has interesting, but not spectacular bark and leaves. In the late summer it blooms in clusters of red (or white, apparently) flowers. Quite eye-catching.



My photo from mt auburn - you can get asense of the shape and texture of the tree (the first one behind the statue):



I have another newly beloved tree I photod, but I didn't note the name. I have it as aralia, but that isn't right. Any help?

Pdawg - what are the chances I could get you to post a pic of that old oaken beauty?

Don't get me started...

well, back in a while.

I can't think of where the biochem building is, PD. Lots of favorite trees on the campus, though, and that one sounds familiar.

Sure, I'll try to take a picture, littlek. It's in front of a crafsman bungalow and it's such a great match of house and tree. I mean, this is totally a craftsman tree. It's textbook.

I'll see if I can find a picture of my California live oak, in Pasadena. Loved it passionately -- we were renting and the landlord sent out tree trimmers and I was in a panic watching them, cold sweat, racing pulse. Couldn't stand it. Rushed out and confronted them eventually, they convinced me that things grow fast in California. They were right.

I tend to like houses because they have huge old trees, so we've had at least one that I've loved passionately ever since Madison. (We were on the 3rd floor and our oak went up at least another three floors and kept the house cool.) Now I love our cottonwoods and our elm, which is looking more sprightly since it's been trimmed (cottonwoods are next).

Will look for pics, probably will have to find and scan, I don't think much of this is on the computer.

I have many favorites. At the top of the list would be yellowwood (Cladrastis Kentukea), red buckeye, redbud and basswood.

When I was in England someone told me there was an oak that dated back to the time William the Conqueror. If it exists, I would like to see it one day.

I would also like to see the great redwoods of California and what is left of the old growth forest in the Northwest.

There is a wonderful old red oak on my property that is probably about 200 years old and was once a boundary marker. I like to visit this tree at the turn of each season.

As a child my grandmother had a gnarly pear tree that gave many big red pears each fall. My grandmother made a sort of sweet compote from them and pear butter. My cousin and I convinced ourselves that a little gnome lived in the tree and created the pears. The tree literally split in half the year my grandmother died and never gave another pear, although the living half still bloomed in the spring. I've always meant to write a children's story about the gnome who loved my grandmother so much that the splitting of the tree was the reflection of his heart breaking when she was no longer there to gather the fruit.

That's a wonderful idea, Green Witch!

This is the only photo I've found on the computer, not a great one -- it's of some of our American Elm (not oak) in Naperville, in the winter. Taken from a second story window -- truly a huge tree, wonderful.

I like Dogwood Kusa over other dogwood varieties in a garden. The flowers fade in sunset colors and the fruit is big and red and more tasty than the standard garden varieties.

Cutleaf maples may be overused, but there is good reason. Beautiful form and fall color.

Sweet gum/liquidamber has become a major favorite. I haven't found a thing I don't like about the plant. The leaf is stunning, the form is regal, the scent of the leaf is like ambrosia. Fall color is splendid....... what's not to like?

And what needs to be said about the sugar maple? One of the most quintisentially new england folliage trees, it produces the sap which can be turned into maple syrup and turns the hills of northern new england into flames in the fall.

Je t'adores tulips in the wild. Their surprising flowers and dried cups, the smell from their crushed leaves enliven hikes in New England woodlands.

Suckering aspen turn the hills of mountain countries into blankets of gold in the fall and their silvery bark and tall straight clusters of trunks make for etherial groves. The word 'quacking' is applied by anyone who has been amidst a grove of aspen on a day with any sort of breeze. The leaves make music!

And, the redwoods, sequoia and meta-sequoia are unparalelled in majesticness.

Contorted Hazelnut (Harry Lauder Walking stick)

Greenwitch - write it! What a wonderful story! Maybe LordE will know the oak you mention. He loves trees, too.

I am silly, I do realize it. But I love trees! I loved trying to ID LordE's willow (never did figure that out!) and the tree planted in the back yard of the place where I lived for 6 years (stewartia). I love trying to find the right tree for the right spot in yards and gardens, too! I'm a tree dork!

Dys! Yes!

Pinon pines (where we get US pine nuts from) can be ancient. This tree, or one like it, has almost 5,000 groeth rings (almost 5,000 years old) according to the website which hosts the picture.



That tree was a seedling waaaay before the Roman Empire started up it's long-time rule of eur-asia.

I planted this variety of Smoke Tree in the back garden this past spring, I hope it looks this good in the years to come;

The thing about the Smoke Tree is that the nursery where I bought it told "never water it as it will die" and then we had the wettest summer in the history of New Mexico. Next spring will tell.

In the front yard which the Lady Diane is planting xeriscape-no water, she just recently planted a Lena's Broom;

Ohhhhhh.

Well, I recently lived in the land of the coastal redwoods. Our city park had virgin redwood trees. I loved loved loved driving from the Sonoma county area through the redwood forest up to Eureka/Arcata by the coast. Exhilarating drives, every last one of them. (Except for the time I was going blind in the passenger seat in the middle of the night, but never mind, that passed.)

I learned to love Cornus capitata there..

well, I learned to like several other trees. Euchryphia, for example, and Gordonia, and whatsitsname... ah, Carpinus.

But I am really from southern california... land of jacarandas - well not really. LA is a semi-arid desert. Cal sycamores are native by the wet parts and that's about it. And in the hills, the CA live oaks, Quercus agricola as Sozobe talked about. I love both of those... but also love jacarandas and a lot of other trees exotic to the LA basin.

Eucalyptus is not native to CA but seems so. Has contributed to wildfires..
I am particularly keen on Euc. deglupta...

I hid my moonshine in this tree and the leaking fluid must have caused some damage...

Actually, I have a cottonwood in my yard that is the documented largest tree in the county. Sometimes I sit in my lawn chair at night and stare up into the tree and it is like looking into a forest.

Plus the rattling sound of a cottonwood in the wind is rather relaxing.

One branch of that tree would crush my entire house if it fell.