I need fast growing Shade Tree advice

I currently have two large Silver Maples (2’ & 3’ diameter trunks) in my front yard which are slowly dying that provide shade for my hostas. I am seeking suggestions for shade trees that will work in zone 5a.

The Silver Maples have very bad surface roots which had lifted the sidewalk. They have “Flat Roots” that stay at the surface.

I need either trees with “Heart Roots” or with “Tap Roots”.

I have a small front yard facing East about 30’ x 40’ and the existing Silver Maples have to stay for now to provide shade for my hostas. My yard gets both morning and afternoon sun as many of the branches (6” to 10” thick) of the Maples have broken off. More break off with every major storm and weak branches have bent down.

There is about 15’ between the existing trees and the house where new trees can be planted that gets the early morning and mid afternoon sun and about 30’ between the trees.

Even if I have to plant multiple smaller trees, that is fine. I just need to create a canopy that will not grow too big for my space, grow into the roof of the house or lift the sidewalk or driveway. Eventually the Silver Maples will be removed.

I need a variety/varieties that does not have surface roots, does not create sucker plants throughout the yard, does not have fruits or nuts, does not make huge messes with broken limbs, has long life and can make dense shade.

I am currently using a 35’ x 10’ piece of shade cloth across the front of the house to shield the hostas from the afternoon sun when it shines down between the existing trees and the house for about 3 to 4 hours a day. The shade cloth is very ugly and very temporary.

My sewer line is in the front yard so I can’t do any willows. Honey Locusts do not make dense shade. I do like ornamental foliage & colored foliage. I don’t care for the mess that Magnolia flowers make. Tulip Trees get too big. Sycamores make messes with limbs and get big.

Having the Silver Maples has made me a little hesitant of Maples. I understand that Silvers and Norways are the worst with surface roots.

Trees with surface roots: Birch, Fir, Spruce, Sugar Maple, Cottonwood, Silver Maple, Hackberry.

Trees with tap roots: Hickory, Walnut, Butternut, White Oak, Hornbeam.

Trees with heart roots: Red Oak, Honey Locust, Basswood, Sycamore, Pines.

I have been researching different trees and I plan on picking up a few with approximately 2” thick trunks next week. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Frank

think about catalpa ... my friend calls his a "bean tree"

Good suggestion, fast growing big tree. Great to climb too. Seed pods are big bean looking things but they aren't a problem.

If you're hoping to keep your shade garden under your new shade tree,
I'd suggest staying away from walnut to avoid that juglans toxicity issue.
You might also want to consider american beech or kentucky coffee tree?

I had Catalpa suggested by a few locals. I grew up around them but never knew the name until this year. I always called them cigar trees because of the seed pods. All of the big ones I have seen in my area look bad. Broken and usually decayed inside from the breaks.

I am currently thinking about adding a couple understory trees that can handle both being under the existing Maples and being able to withstand the sun once the Maples are eventually gone. Dogwood tree clump with three 1" diameter trunks and an Eastern Redbud with a 1.75" diameter.

Also thinking of adding a Chanticleer Pear in the sunniest spot. 1.75" diameter trunk.

Not only do I want shade, I also want something nice to look at. I want everything! :^)

The area I have for planting is very limited and I don't want to have to butcher new trees to keep them from growing into the house. Lindens, Tulip trees, Wireless Zelkova and Birch are all out. I would never plant anything that makes nuts that attract squirrels. I hate squirels. They kill my perennial plants.

One of my local large nurseries has all their spring dug balled and burlapped trees on sale for 40% to 60% off right now.

While looking around I did find a 2.75" diameter Louisa Crabapple (weeping) regularly priced $469.00 on sale for $89.00! There is nothing wrong with it. I have to buy it just for the price. Will stick it in the back yard and protect it from the dogs. It is has a very cool limb structure that is shaped like a giant umbrella. The limbs spiral around the top of the trunk like a spiral staircase. It is about 6' tall x 6' wide. 32" rootball. It gets 12' to 15' tall x 12' to 15' wide. Perfect for full sun backyard that has overhead powerlines.

Since I started writing this, I am now considering the Wireless Zelkova with a 2.25" diameter trunk instead of the Pear. The mature size is 24' tall by 36' wide. I know growth would be hindered from the shade of the Maples but in time there will be more sun to eventually full sun.

I have sycamore trees all over my yard and I'm planting more I love the bark and the huge leaves. But the really big ones I have 40' taller or better have plenty of surface roots. It could just be this area I live in when it comes to rain its either to much or were in a drought, I am planting lots of trees I planted 35 last year and will double that this year. I totally don't like most native pines too much work and very messy (loblolly pines) I would suggest Redbud to shade your smaller plants its and excellent hardy tree and doesn't get huge but spreads nicely. Also I like Ash I have planted two Fan-Tex Ash there hardy and take to your ground fast. Also Lacebark Elm nice looking tree with intresting bark and tiny leaves. For pretty flowering trees I stared about 10 Orchid trees from seed two of them will go into the ground this year. A new one to me I started this year is Strawberry trees I planted 5 but lost two, the others beutiful But do have a lot of nasty thorns. I also love the Tulip poplar. My only problem with it is the deer love it more than me and the have eaten it in half twice I have to build cages around the tasty one but was too late for the poplar. Also you might consider the eucalyptus, great smell and repels fleas and mosquitos.

I forgot to mention the catulpa tree here in Texas if you have sandy soil under the tree it gets these worms or catapillars on them which is the best catfish bait I have ever tried here they sell for $4 a doz. Just a small little known fact.

Well I found a $200.00 Dogwood in a 20g pot for $40.00. Got the Chanticlear Pear B&B, Eastern Redbud B&B and a Serviceberry in a 5g pot. I didn't plan on the Serviceberry but it was in their Garage Sale because it was leaning over in the pot. I also got that $469.00 Louisa Crabapple B&B for $89.00. I even got a 25% discount on delivery of the three big Balled & Burlapped trees. I ended up with about $1,200.00 worth of trees, shrubs and perennials for $650.00 including the $153.00 for delivery. Also got a Flowering Almond in a 3g pot, Crimson Pygmy Barberry in a 2g pot, Wine & Roses Wiegela in a 3g pot. I also got five large $50.00 mixed perennial display pots for $44.00 for all 5.

Now the problem is getting everything in the ground. The roots from the Maples is a nightmare. I started one hole yesterday for the Dogwood and ran into a 4" root. That wasn't so bad, I am used to it. The bad part is that I then found a large piece of concrete, over 20" x 20" right under the root about 12" down. I haven't found the edges yet. I have found chunks of broken concrete here and there while planting in this yard but this piece is big. The surface is wavy so I think it is a piece of old sidewalk turned upside down. Lucky me! At least I got a deal on the trees and stuff.

Those dogwoods like morning sun only and they don't like wet feet so I hope its a well drained soil.Redbuds are pretty hardy but i have lost a big part of one its dieing after being pushed to one side by hurricane Ike but the rest of the tree is hanging in there. I hear ya about the roots I had 82 pine trees cut off this place 2 years ago and had the stumps ground but every time I plant another tree "BAM" more pine roots go get the pickax. I hope that big piece of cocrete isn't a old septic tank ,good luck I would like to see some pictures if ya can...............rucky

Oh ya, pine trees have big tap roots in the South with other roots runing all over the place. I have no rocks or clay and digging in my yard still isn't that easy because you need an axe to get through all the pine roots.

No septic tank here. I live in the city and everyone is tied in to the sewer system. My sewer line does run across the front yard about 15' over from where I ran across the latest chunk of concrete. I have to use a hatchet and a sawzall everytime I dig a hole. I recently tore out the old sidewalk because it had been lifted by the tree roots of the Maples and have one 6" root exposed now and another one I still have to excavate around so I can cut them out to put in a new pathway using large concrete stone shaped pavers and 300lbs+ stone outcropping as steps. Not doing a concrete sidewalk. Pavers will be easier to fix if the trees push them up.

I do a lot of contracting work so I run across this kind of thing often. Some people like to bury things instead of removing them. This house had a front door in the center of the house when originally built. Someone added on and moved the door to the corner of the house. I think I am now finding the pieces of the original sidewalk.

I will get some pictures of my root mess. I took out a small Maple that had a 12" diameter trunk and was about 30 or 40 foot tall in order to plant a Pink Weeping Cherry in that spot. I still have the trunk with some of the roots attached. I had to excavate 12" down all the way around the base of the tree and cut every root with a hatchet and sawzall. I used a tow rope and a van to pull the trunk over. I left the trunk about 8' tall so I would have some leverage when pulling it out. I found concrete chunks with the roots wrapped around them when taking this tree out. They will dull or break a sawzall blade real quick.

I found an older pic that shows the small tree I just removed and the big tree. You can see the steps of the sidewalk were at a nice dangerous angle from being pushed up by the big tree. The one other tree you can’t see in the pic is over 2’ in diameter about 3’ from the driveway.

BTW. In the pic are Gauge, Pitbull, 13yo. Hans, German Shepherd Dog, 5yo. Athena, English Mastiff, 9yo. Medusa, Neapolitan Mastiff puppy, 13months.

Just taken this morning, this pic shows the big trees and what is left of the small one I took out.

This one shows the trunk of the tree I took out and what I am working on for a replacement of the Tiltmore Sidewalk. If you look just below the flap of green indoor/outdoor carpet, you can just make out a large tree root. The landscape blocks around the Weeping Cherry were just thrown there to get them out of the way. They will be perfectly level once placed. I was going to have the stone steps and path go off to the left but have since decided to keep the steps paralell to the house. Now I have to adjust them. Fun!

The bottom of the small removed tree trunk.

The root in front of the porch. I have to cut this one plus one other big one out to get my new path at the correct elevation. I have been dreading this. When you start cutting into one of these, the root clamps down on the sawzall blade. You can see a lovely pile of small roots in the foreground which were removed while exposing the big root. You can't tell from the pic but that hole is dug down about 12".

Last but not least is the latest hole being dug for the new Dogwood. It is about 30" wide by 16" deep so far. The nice root above with the concrete below. This hole is about 6 to 8 feet from the largest Maple and 8' out from the house. Pretty much everything has to be dug while down on hands and knees because a shovel will not cut through roots bigger than 1/2" thick. After this hole I have to dig 2 more holes even bigger than this one for the balled and burlapped Chanticleer Pear and the Eastern Redbud that are being delivered this coming Wednesday. Luckily I have a big pile of soil on the driveway that I can use to mound up around the balled trees to help keep them from drying out and help them stand upright while I work on the holes.

Then I get to dig more holes for the rest of the shrubs. Luckily the largest hole for the Louisa Crabapple will be in the backyard that doesn't have all of the Maple roots! YEAH! I also have to plant a Shawnee Brave Bald Cypress that is in a 15g pot I picked up yesterday for the backyard. I have already planted 13 other shrubs and trees around my yard this year. I have to be carefull with eventual mature heights because of the over head power lines that feed the houses and they also feed the transformers in my neighborhood that line one side of the property plus cut across the backyard. That really limits what and where I can plant. The electric company here will butcher your trees. I can only plant trees and shrubs under the power lines that will remain under 12' to 15' tall so they won't get butchered.

Looks great your doing a good job I am evious of the big trees your planting most of the ones I am planting are anywhere from 1.5 foot to 8 foot we have started most of ours ourselves in pots and the rest we wait untill august when the trees are all reduced and we go in and buy a truckload (my pickup) we recently went into lowes and the guy said all of his trees were 75%off so we bought a chinese pistach and janie magnolia a weeping willow and another fan tex ash for just less than $6.00 a piece they were all about 7 foot tall. I am recently retired and have arthritus so I only plant one or two trees a day I usually wait untill winter to plant (no snow here) but I have started this year now in order to get them all in the ground before next summer I still have about 15 sycamores 3 or 4 red leaf maple about 6 orchid trees several flowering maple giants that I really know nothing about other than they are beutiful with 3 different color flowers ( I started them and the orchid trees from seed) I am also trying to start an olive tree but no luck yet I have 5 grape plants comming in afew days. I have 2 3/4 acres here and as I said I had all the pines cut off the property because I was sick and tired of picking up pine branches and pine needles in everything. I had the pine trees cut two years ago and I had pine needles 3 inches thick on top of my metal shed and my carport. I thought that hurricane Ike would have taken care of that but nooo I had to climb up there and push them off and wash them off both roofs and guess what they ate holes in the metal on both roofs my fault i guess for not taking care of them sooner. I also have an old huge dead willow tree down by my shore line that Ike missed instead he took two huge green gum trees out go figure. oh well I am enjoying following your progress please keep me posted your very neat in what your doing I like that....any job worth doing is worth doing well.

It shouldn't take 6 hours or so to dig a hole to plant a tree but I got it done. Luckily I was able to find 2 edges if the concrete slab that was burried. The sawzall and pack of cigarettes are for scale. This pic is after I cut out those nice roots.

This is what I broke out with a 30lb sledge.

This is the hole after concrete demolition.

Finally, this is the new Dogwood finaly planted in the hole that took forever to dig. Then I planted the Serviceberry also in the front yard and the Shawnee Brave Bald cypress in the back yard.

The backyard is the dogs domain, for now, so I have to put up temporary protection for anything I plant back there. Eventually I will split the yard with a picket fence so the dogs can have part of the yard to play and I can landscape the rest. As you can see, I like little lap dogs! In time I plan on having solid canopies of all different types of trees in both front and back yards. The Bald Cypress is the perfect tree for that spot due to the fact that area turns into a small pond everytime it rains and these trees like to sit in water. This was the only tree I paid full price for at $119.00. I just had to have it. I will be staking this one to straighten it up. My three balled and burlapped trees will be here in two days. The 32" ball Louisa Crab goes in the back, easy digging but moving that ball will be the hard part. I think the other two have 24" balls. Easier to move but they get planted in my front yard. The root and concrete zone!

LOL, I lived for a while in upstate NY and that had glacial till (think that's what it's called). Your hole reminded me of it, I couldn't dig a hole without hitting something large. Big boulders everywhere and rock after rock.

They look good and healthy and as good a job as you did making sure they had a good home I am sure they will stay that way. I planted about 15 bald cypress 2 years ago when the water level in the lake was down. My neibor bought 50 small bare root trees from the Louisiana parks division. So we went down the shore with a hole punch punched a hole in the mud pushed in the tree gave it a twist and stepped on the hole to close it up. I thought this would never work but to my surprise everone is growing. I stay here all the time but he lives in Louisiana and travels back and forth to visit his kids. I have lights alond the shore he doesn't a beaver topped everyone ov his trees and left mine alone. His are still growing but much shorter than mine. They went from a skinny little twig to 4 to 5 foot in 2 years. I think you will be real happy with the cypress I think they are beutiful nice soft leaves. I love that dogwood . Another good choice. Let me know how you make out with the rest....rucky

I know one thing, you sure have some good looking soil!

Doug

The soil isn't too bad here. The top foot and a half is decent soil and under that is sand. My main complaint is all of the root chopping I have to do to get to it, the buried concrete and the places someone had used whiterock years ago. The entire front yard is all roots. I use a mixture of the soil with peat and vermiculite added when I plant. I also use a bulb fertilizer mixed in under the rootballs. So far I have planted the 2" Weeping Mulberry, 2" Flowering Dogwood, 1.75" Chanticleer Pear, 2" Eastern Redbud, Crimson Queen Japanese Maple 30" tall, Variegated Red Twig Dogwood, China Girl Holly and a Serviceberry bush that I will be changing to tree form. Then there are 40 new varieties of hosta added along with a climbing Joesephs Coat and Pink Knockout roses. 4 honeysuckles that I started from pieces of roots that I dug up when installing a PVC fence for my sister. I still have to plant the Pygmy Barberry and Flowering Almond in the front yard as well. Tomorrow I will be picking up a bunch of low lying carpet Junipers to cover the sloping areas in the front. Tonight I picked up 5 colors of Butterfly Bushes for the backyard that are 3 to 4 feet tall for 5 bucks each. The junipers at another store are about 5 bucks each as well. I can seriously find a sale and save a ton of money. Almost every single tree and shrub I have bought was at least 50% off. I am packing a lot of plants, trees and shrubs into the front yard but I am planting and leaving clearences based on mature sizes.

wow you have been a busy beaver I'll bet its going to look really nice when your done would love pictures of the final product.....rucky

Frank I've been following this thread, wow that's a lot of work! I hate to say this, I like that tree root, looks like a sculpture :) you could varnish that thing & sell it on ebay lol make a cool coffee table with a piece of glass over it.

Here is my new and improved upside down Silver Maple. I did it to be unusual plus a little because I really dislike those trees because of the roots. It's payback. It takes you 1 minute to dig a hole, it takes me 1 hour to dig the same hole.

Tonight I picked up 11 shrubs, mostly the low lying junipers of different cultivars from 12" max height to 24" max height. Two in 1 gal pots and the rest in 2 & 3 gal pots for $55.00 including tax. I am wanting to eliminate all of the grass in the front yard. Will be moving in a lot of different groundcovers. Also picked up a dwarf Spirea and a Low Grow Sumac. I put in a Tiger Eyes Sumac a few weeks ago. I have been mainly going with things that will not get huge when mature as I have a small yard and want to pack in as much as I can while keeping everything spaced properly. I hate it when people plant a Japanese Yew in a 2' wide strip of dirt between a house and a sidewalk. I cut out 3 of them this morning for my best friend that completely covered her sidewalk.

that's hysterical! lol

I am getting a little carried away now. I planted 10 shrubs today and had 9 others left to plant plus the huge Louisa Crab. I just went to a local home supply store tonight and picked up a 6' tall pink flowering Weeping Crabapple, a 4' Contorted FIlbert (aka Harry Lauders Walking Stick), another dwarf Spirea, 22 groundcovers, 1 perennial and 10 more one gallon Blue Rug Junipers. Add in a pack of tree fertilizer spikes and it was only $91.00 total.

I think by the end of next year I will have both the front and back yards packed full. I have been mostly staying with trees and shrubs that stay small so I can get more varieties packed in the small yards. We will have to buy the house next door when I run out of room! Luckily, she wants us to buy it.

I have so many shrubs, trees, perennials and tropicals in pots sitting on the driveway that it looks like a small nursery.

Wow, Frank, I wish I could get that much done before winter! I have a Harry Lauder I love it. I also have a semi-weeping crabapple, and a praire fire crabapple (just planted that one, it's tiny).
Post some pictures! I would love to see your nursery :)
I have a small silver maple but it's way way out back...away from everything.

My mini nursery keeps changing everytime the wind blows. I will buy a plant and turn it into ten plants. Plant a couple, save some for trade and give others away. I just gave 100 pots of perennials, 50 pots of annuals and a few small trees and shrubs to a local Memory Garden. I can't even count the number of bales of peat I have gone through making up my own potting mix.

This pic shows most of the shade plants I have sitting around in pots but not the Alocasia and Calocasias. I am in the process of cutting out a part of the driveway in order to have more shade beds. The hostas are sitting in the hole. I have almost half of it out so far. I have to move all the plants, turn the soil, add more soil, add, peat and compost, mix it up then I will be overwintering many pots there until spring. Then I will pull them all out and plant the beds with new hostas I haven't bought or received trading yet. I have been on here about a month now and have done 5 trades with a 6th in works now. Next spring I will trade big time. I love to propagate.

The Elephant Ears. I have 7 varieties now and am working on getting more. I got all but one of them within the past month. A single pot of each variety. They aren't exactly happy at the moment because they recently had all of the potting mix washed off when I divided them. The local nurseries that had them were not taking the best care of them so they showed signs of neglect.

oh everything looks so pretty! I can't believe how much you've done in 1 month! I haven't traded anything, I'm like the poor drummer boy, I have nothing to give :)
I have mostly concentrated on trees & shrubs, the yard was a bare acre when we bought the house. Once I get my trees & shrubs in I can start getting into more fun stuff.
I have a mental list of all the plants I want to get....it grows faster than the plants lol
I also do a lot of research before I plant,and I'm slow to make decisions on what I want where...a couple of the areas I planted just came together fairly easily, but other areas have stumped me. Oh well. it's a process, right?
How long have you been gardening?

These next two pics shows the plants I just gave away on the morning they were to be planted. They were all just dug and potted up within the past two months. I have before shots of that garden and will get some after shots tomorrow morning to post. They were struggling in their efforts and it had looked rather sparse. After two ladies and myself got all but 26 pots in the ground a couple days ago everyone was amazed by the change in how the garden looked. The plants are not all that special except for a few but they filled the void rather nicely and next year that garden will look nice.

A look from the other end of the donated plants.

wow, how nice! lucky place to get all those beauties! Nothing wrong with "ordinary" plants, they're consistent . Are they planted the way you placed them there? That looks pretty nice.

I started gardening about 20 years ago when I was in my mid 20's. I bit off more than I could chew by trying to do too large of an area at once. Through trial and error I learned how to turn one 4" plant into hundreds. How to make 3 small plants look like one mature plant. How important mature heights and spreads are. That the natural look is much easier than a formal look.

I have been out of gardening for most of the past 10 years and just got back into it like I used to just 3 months ago. I usually end up learning all of the Latin names, common names and cultivars. I have about 100 new cultivars now so that will take me a minute. I have a list of almost 100 more Hostas that I will get next year. Right now I am mainly concentrating on the trees and shrubs. I was on the Hostas last month. The first month was digging and potting up all of the plants I wanted out of here, clearing iut a bed of different types of ferns and planning the Hostas to put there. I just kept a single one gallon pot of each sun perennial I took out. I didn't want to eliminate them completely. I prefer gardening in the shade, it is cooler, that is why I am planting so may trees. I am eliminating all of the grass and going with many different groundcovers. Next year I will install sprinkler systems all the way around the house because hand watering takes way too long.

You should use the trade list want option to keep track of plants you are thinking of getting even if you have nothing to trade yet. I like the trading. It is like Christmas to come home and find a box of new plants waiting for you. I learned that I shouldn't pack up and mail 4 trades with different people on the same day. That was a lot of work. I have received two of the four trades. I will be getting more Hostas, more perennials and even a couple small trees. A Japanese Maple and a Bald Cypress. I sent three Pyracantha trees to a lady on Monday because they won't overwinter here.

I am not going to buy anymore trees or shrubs this year. I keep telling myself that. It is so hard to plant in this yard. I can't do it without pruners, a hatchet and a sawzall. Silver Maples are my arch enemy. Give me time and the two huge ones in my front yard will be totem poles with vines growing on their big dead trunks! I would girdle them but I need the shade from them for now.

They are just lined up in front of the garden so they could look at them. Once they saw them I placed them in the garden as they needed to be planted. The ladies don't really have any gardening knowledge and the ones before me that were supposed to know about it didn't really know as much as what they thought. It was supposed to be informal yet they planted things in straight lines. Hollyhocks planted in the front. Purple Fountain Grass planted at a path intersection, the list goes on. They tried to cover a large area with about 25% of what it would have taken to do the entire garden. I gave them the other 75%. And I am still not done. I have a bunch of old purple Bearded Iris that I need to dig and plant down there at the garden. I am also doing some fundraising for them as they have very little money for the garden. I am normally behind the scenes but I know certain people that I know can give up $100.00 each. The garden organizers where happy when I spoke to 3 people in one day and got $300.00 which is more than the funds they had on hand. Then I will have 2 or 3 of them hold fundraisers in a few bars and nightclubs for the garden once I get the individual donations from all of them. I work installing sound and lighting systems in clubs so I have known all of the owners for over 20 years. They have a hard time telling me no.

I tried building off of what the garden had in the ground already. Taking a single plant or cluster of the same plant and turning it into a wave planting using the same plants that I had donated. Even though I had to cut back most of the perennials I donated it still looks like a full garden. Giving them a bunch of my mature Hosta clumps made an instant shade garden under a small tree. So tomorrow at 8am I get to help my BFF clean her bar then down to the garden to put in the last 26 pots at 9:30am then home to plant giant tree, 2 small trees and 15 more shrubs. I don't think I will get it all planted tomorrow. I promise not to go to anymore home improvement stores that sell plants and I won't go to the two big local nurseries that have eveything on sale right now. Ok, I'll try not to. LOL It would only take me a minute to build a cold house in the back yard! I could store a lot of plants in one of those.