What are your favorite type of trees? Why? The blooms? The fruit? The shade?
The lumber? Their beauty?
The Jeffrey Pine.
When we lived in California, we spent many weekends backpacking and camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains. My dad told me about the Jeffrey Pine and showed me one. The sap smells exactly like a pineapple vanilla milkshake!
My youngest brother passed away in an accident when he was quite young, and his name was Jeffrey. So the Jeffrey Pine has a special meaning to me.
I love all trees. I consider myself a tree in human form. I'm especially partial to conifers - fir, hemlock, cedar, sequoia, cyprus... - but I also love deciduous trees like maples, oaks, willows, alders, elms, and on and on.
For me, it's everything about them: their beauty, their sizes and shapes and colors, the flowers and seeds, the leaves/needles, the bark, the roots. They play the long game, starting as tiny seeds, growing slowly (or not), outliving humans, and becoming enormous.
I plant hundreds of trees every fall, most of are seedlings that pop up in my garden that I then pot up in small containers and grow for a year or two until they're big enough to become members of the forest.
I'm pretty sure I've been a tree in a past life.
Quote from: Lori Dee on May 19, 2025, 07:57:36 PMJeffrey Pine has a special meaning to me.
So sad! Yet countered by having the Jeffery Pine.
I too am a tree lover/hugger. I did a science project (Biology, High School). A bark collection with extra credit for having the Latin names, 110 specimens. Expanded my horizons so much. My Dad owned 50 acres of woods where I spent almost all of my time at 15, 16 and 17 when not at school. Weather non-withstanding.
I never thought I'd be living in the Intermountain West. Pine beetle devastation.
The deciduous forest of the mid-Atlantic region, the Carolina long leaf pines, the oaks, maples, beech and chestnuts of New England. I could go on. Avenue of the Giants and Muir woods are a high favorite. River Birch and Maples in my own garden.
Trees are really nice.
Some can make a mess, such as sweetgum trees or some persimmon trees.
For me evergreens in general, nothing like laying under blue spruce. The needles over the years built up the softest bed beneath and a perfect place to vegetate. The possibility of laying on an ball of pitch is ever present but worth the risk.
Quote from: Min on May 21, 2025, 08:57:14 PMFor me evergreens in general, nothing like laying under blue spruce. The needles over the years built up the softest bed beneath and a perfect place to vegetate. The possibility of laying on an ball of pitch is ever present but worth the risk.
They are nice trees.
I haven't seen many trees in my life, I've spent most of my life in the desert. I'd like to see some nice ones. Ones that aren't sticky or pokey.
Quote from: hazelkitty on May 21, 2025, 10:45:17 PMI haven't seen many trees in my life, I've spent most of my life in the desert. I'd like to see some nice ones. Ones that aren't sticky or pokey.
I grew up in the desert. I love the Joshua Tree. They are so unique looking.
I like trees that have pretty flowers.
Tree leaves can be very interesting.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on May 21, 2025, 02:20:54 PMTrees are really nice.
Some can make a mess, such as sweetgum trees or some persimmon trees.
I swear, hand on heart, that there is no tree that does not create a mess! Granted, some worse than others.
My River Birches produce hundreds of blooms in 2 inch or so soft flexible draping cones, that each produce 50 or more seeds each, fluttering down down all summer which are an unholy mess tracking then the seed cones fall off, an off course the leaves in fall and shedding sticks all year. Always sweeping the porches, through the winter too, from blowing or washing off the roof.
The Golden Maple produces tiny exquisitely shaped yellow flowers about 1/4 inch across by the thousands, sheds them over the early spring preceded by bud cases shedding, followed by thousands of immature winged seeds while the most beautiful green leaves, followed by the fully matured wing seed pairs about 3 inches across, followed by the delicious golden leaves shedding in the fall, followed by hanging dead leaves over the rest of the winter, in that wondrous cycle. Then there are the Maples in the park strips, leaves, leaves, leaves in the fall.
My Sequoiadendron Giganteum, I just like the way that looks :) Giant Sequoia is not a tidy tree by any means. Leaves are evergreen, awl-shaped (read very pokey to bare feet!), 1/8 - 1/4 in long, and arranged spirally on the shoots which shed shed and shed some morehave . Then the small cones 1 inch or so, sometimes in pairs. A columnar trunk isn't nearly as attractive as the coastal redwood taper, but I chose it to attempt a taste of of my beloved CA redwood forests in my intermountain western slope of the Rockies. I tried to grow the coastal variety, but no joy after 10 years of trying. We had coastal saplings sent out from Muir Woods then more of of Sequoia. It took a dozen saplings with trial and error to have a survivor. Methinks its not fond of drought because its only 25 foot tall and bushy after 15 years. It forked at about 10 feet.
I do admit that Lilacs aren't so much of a mess.
I just realized I forgot to mention the flowering/not fruiting apple trees. They aren't so messy. Unlike their cousins the 30 year old flowering plum trees that produce small plums when they were supposed to be fruit free.
I forgot to mention that my River Birches are over 40 years old which is unusually long lived for that species.
I have favorites, but treat them all with care. We live at 4500 feet of altitude, dry hot summers and (used to be) snowy winters.
Money. ;D
Quote from: Devlyn on May 22, 2025, 08:35:16 AMMoney. ;D
Silly girl! ;D :D Pachira aquatica, the "money tree"
Quote from: D'Amalie on May 22, 2025, 08:47:42 AMSilly girl! ;D :D Pachira aquatica, the "money tree"
I have one growing in my living room. I love it. It is not even a year old yet.
I'm still waiting for the first harvest. ;D
(https://i.imgur.com/3ElYnMb.jpeg)
Quote from: Lori Dee on May 22, 2025, 09:30:15 AMI have one growing in my living room. I love it. It is not even a year old yet.
I'm still waiting for the first harvest. ;D
(https://i.imgur.com/3ElYnMb.jpeg)
What a lovely view! Neat and tidy, clean and airy room!
The Cherry Blossom is a pretty tree. Although it doesn't stay in bloom very long.🌸
I could talk about trees all day every day, and it would be very much like the saying, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Words don't even come close.
I moved from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest of the US in 1994. I was immediately awestruck by the majesty of the trees here. In 1997, I bought a small house on 5 forested acres surrounded by neighbors who all had 5 or more forested acres. It felt like living in the middle of nowhere.
In the 28 years that I've been here, the forest has matured, the trees at least doubling in height, losing their lower branches, and the understory thinning. Now you can see (and hear) the neighbors through the trees even though they're a hundred meters or a half a kilometer away. (Sure, let's commingle metric and imperial units.)
For the past several years, I've been planting shade-tolerant conifers (Western hemlock and Western redcedar) throughout the property, especially around the perimeter. The hope is that they'll eventually grow large enough that they'll re-establish that screen that the lower branches and saplings used to provide. It's possible that I'll never see it materialize, but it feels like an essential part of what I was sent here to do. I'm a plant girl.
The original owner of the place was also something of a plant girl, and she distributed several dozen wildly varying species of trees all around the house. Albizzia, styrax, redwood, redbud, magnolia, dogwood, serviceberry, oaks, pines, maples, birch, cedar... Too many to remember. I arrived and added my own menagerie. They don't all survive in the local conditions, but the ones that do reward us more than enough to compensate for the losses.
The plant kingdom is where I consistently find my joy and peace.
I was going to share a pun about trees and decided against that as I did not want to go out on a limb.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on May 19, 2025, 07:51:56 PMWhat are your favorite type of trees? Why? The blooms? The fruit? The shade?
The lumber? Their beauty?
Where I live, there's a woodland at the bottom of my road. I live in a very "Green and pleasant land" part of England. Can't stand big cities. The sound of the wind blowing through the trees is magical at night. Doesn't matter what type they are. It's always very "Midsummer Night's Dream."
Trees can be very nice.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on May 22, 2025, 07:41:36 PMTrees can be very nice.
The irony of it is... my favourite movie is "The Blair Witch Project" where trees aren't very nice at all. ;D
Quote from: Sephirah on May 22, 2025, 07:42:58 PMThe irony of it is... my favourite movie is "The Blair Witch Project" where trees aren't very nice at all. ;D
I have not watched that movie.
I like the redwood trees.
I like redbud trees.
I like red maple trees.
Bradford pears bloom nicely, even shaped somewhat like a pear, but they are weak trees.
Silver maples are also fast growing but structurally weak trees.
Some people "top" their trees but this is really not good for the tree.
Some people must like the flaring out of branches at the tops of the trees.
Topped trees also look really weird when the tree has no leaves. Ugly.
When laying mulch around a tree, always keep the mulch away from the trunk.
Mulch should not be touching the tree trunk. Sometimes I see lots of mulch around trees, with mulch at its highest level touching the tree trunk. Not good. You do not want to promote decay and too much moisture of tree roots.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on May 22, 2025, 07:55:48 PMBradford pears bloom nicely, even shaped somewhat like a pear, but they are weak trees.
I've heard that the trick is to graft other pear scions onto the rowdy Bradford rootstock.
Hugs, Devlyn