Hello,
Eventually, we are going to be moving into our house on 5 acres and right now there is absolutely nothing but grass out there and it gets really hot (zone 7/8 ). We have read in various places that trees positioned to shade the house will help cut down the cooling cost.
However, we aren't sure which trees to plant or how far/close to the house they need to be in order to be effective.
I'm kind of leaning towards planting a row of sugar maples on the west side of the house and maybe a row of red maples further west of that. (the west side is the side that is side that is open to the field and it's also the side our air conditioning unit will be on.)
I think my fiance likes white oaks more that any other type of tree, but I don't know very much about how they do in yards. I see them as more of a "stand alone" tree too. I'm looking for something that will do well as part of a group.
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Yotta Yotta
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- Location: Zone 7 North AL
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rainbowgardener
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Here's a link to a nice little article about using trees to shade your house, talks about distance, placement, etc:
https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G6900
oak, maple, and poplar are good choices, but you might want to think about native trees with good habitat value. Oaks are nice for that, because of the acorns, but also walnut, hickory, hackberry, birch, beech, dogwood. The sugar maple and red maple you mentioned are native for you. Buckeyes are good fast growing shade trees with food value and even though it is my state tree
, you have native ones too. Serviceberries are beloved of about 40 different kinds of birds.
https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G6900
oak, maple, and poplar are good choices, but you might want to think about native trees with good habitat value. Oaks are nice for that, because of the acorns, but also walnut, hickory, hackberry, birch, beech, dogwood. The sugar maple and red maple you mentioned are native for you. Buckeyes are good fast growing shade trees with food value and even though it is my state tree
, you have native ones too. Serviceberries are beloved of about 40 different kinds of birds.-
Yotta Yotta
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- Posts: 6
- Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:53 am
- Location: Zone 7 North AL
Hey thanx for the article. I'll give it a good looking over later today!
There's a lot of Hackberrys lining our field so we got more than we need of those! My bf really wants pecan trees too...but a lot of the pecan trees I see around here start looking really ugly and usually have torn up crowns. I haven't found any hickory trees around here yet. I really loved the look of the shagbark hickories in Kentucky.
There's a lot of Hackberrys lining our field
so we got more than we need of those! My bf really wants pecan trees too...but a lot of the pecan trees I see around here start looking really ugly and usually have torn up crowns. I haven't found any hickory trees around here yet. I really loved the look of the shagbark hickories in Kentucky.