Submitted by: Bob Rodwell

When I bought my Raleigh home on 4/10 of an acre it had one tree, and it was shorter than the house. I knew that needed to change. I read that I should plant shade trees to the South and West, and evergreens to shield the home from cool breezes on the North. Sounded simple to me. And that’s where things started to go wrong, horribly wrong. I’ve been in that home a long time now, and if I had it to do all over again – I’d buy a townhouse. 
Are you thinking about planting some trees on your lot? If so, maybe you can learn from my mistakes. I’ll hit just the big ones here.
 
Bradford Pears – beautiful trees, all year long – in your neighbor’s yard. I like symmetry. So it made sense to me to plant one near both of the west-facing corners of my house. They were small sticks to begin with, so 15 feet away looked right. Wrong. The flowers stink. I’ve been told they are propagated by flies, not bees, so that’s why they smell like rotted meat. But that’s ok, because they grow so fast that they are weak, and break or fall down in a bad storm. Or one did, ruining that symmetry. The good news is they do make good firewood. The bad news is if you do not grind the stumps well, they sprout bushes.
 
Leyland Cypress – beautiful, and birds love to nest in them, and they make great screens when you plant a row of them. I still liked symmetry then (I'm a slow learner). Like Bradford Pears, they grow fast and weak, and when one of our fun ice storms hit, some bent over to touch the ground, and they didn’t spring back.  When one or two in that row disappear, it’s like having a big gap in your teeth – not your best feature. The good news is you can make mulch from them. The bad news is it is expensive to fill that gap or tear down the row.
 
Red Maples – don’t we all love those bright red leaves in the Fall? I do, except all my Red Maples have yellow leaves. Turns out the “Red” in their name means their flowers, not their leaves. Who knew?  You need to pick them out in the Fall while they can show you their true colors. And be sure to buy Red Maples, not Silver. Silver Maples break in our fun ice storms, and mine cost me more to get rid of than the Leyland Cypresses did. They generated some decent firewood, but mostly just a lot of whip-skinny branches.
 
As bad as those mistakes were, those were not my worst. Oh no. The worst were the pines. My Northeast corner looked like a good place to plant a bunch of pines so I could generate my own pine straw. I planted some White Pines and some Loblolly. White Pines die here.  All of them. Don’t know why. Mine waited until they were big enough to be costly to remove. That gave the Loblollies more room and light and they took off, or rather up. Remember those ice storms? I don’t think you can plant a Loblolly on a 4/10 acre lot and not have it be within striking distance of your roof, or your neighbor’s, or at least their fence. And not only were they real expensive to remove, but they did not even yield firewood or mulch!
 
I recommend Dogwoods and Crepe Myrtles. And if you have room and time, a Japanese Maple. All are short, pretty, smell good and make good firewood. Good luck!