Festival of Trees

Although our yard in no way meets the criteria as a "wooded lot," we do have a large number of trees. That is, we have close to 30 trees on our half acre. For you tree enthusiasts out there, I thought I'd share how we got so many trees in such a small area, and still have a large full-sun garden!

As you approach our front door, here's what you'll see:

 We have two trees in the front yard, a redbud (foreground), and an ash. The ash was here when we moved in. We planted the redbud. In fact, there are only 5 trees in our yard that we DID NOT plant ourselves.

A better view of those two trees, but no view of the house...

Now to the backyard, wa-a-a-a-y back:

 Along the fencerow, I don't count the maple on the left. It's in the fencerow, and the fence is even growing into its bark. It isn't our tree, although we accept its shade with gratitude. The smaller tree is our cherry tree. It produces well, but since we don't spray, the cherries are wormy and we let the birds have them.

 Also on the fencerow, on our side, are three hackberry trees. Are you counting? That's trees number 4, 5, and 6 in our yard. We did not plant these, nor the other tree in our fencerow, a mulberry. (Why, of course we DID NOT plant the mulberry! It's a messy tree! lol)

Tree # 7, the aforementioned mulberry

 Here's tree #8, a tulip tree. It's planted in the hosta farm in the shade of the hackberry trees. I think that's the reason (too much shade) that it's underperformed; i.e., it's small and it's never bloomed.

 Tree #9 is Japanese maple 'Geisha Gone Wild.'

 Trees # 10 and 11 (above and below) are Japanese maples too. The name is 'Crimson Queen.'

Our first Japanese maple, in the Serenity Garden (# 12)


Next, on to the conifers:

 # 13 and 14 are "the littles." These were purchased as tiny seedlings, and we plan to cut them at some point for Christmas trees. Above, a white pine, and below, a Fraser fir.

 Our latest tree purchase is this Weeping Norway spruce (# 15).

 We have two Weeping pines (#s 16 and 17). We are trying to train them to weep!

 # 18 is another small conifer. I'm not sure what kind it is.

 Here's my $10 spruce, purchased as a tiny plant and growing to quite a nicely shaped tree. This is tree # 19.

 Love the color of this blue spruce (tree # 20).

Here in the triangular bed, left to right, #21-23, flowering crab, buckeye, and Black spruce.

 Here's that same crabtree, cultivar unknown, in May.

Gracing the cottage garden is this dwarf flowering dogwood (cultivar not known). This is tree # 24. Yes, there are more!

 Another $10 tree, a pin oak in what I call the rocky garden (# 25).

 # 26 is a $2.00 redbud tree, purchased on clearance from a garden center that was closing.

# 27 was labelled as an Autumn Blaze maple, although I'm not so sure, given its fall color, which looks more orange than red (see below).

In case you're wondering, the tree with yellow leaves in this photo from last fall was an ash, which we removed because it was a seeded ash, with many seeds, and we didn't want thousands of ash seedlings in our yard.

I have two of these dwarf Alberta spruces in the cottage garden. That's 29 trees!

Linking to Home and Garden Thursday and Fertilizer Friday