Tree of the week: Advice

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Good morning, Charlie Weis, welcome to Pasadena. As always on Saturdays, we’re joined by our tree-loving friend Pieter Severynen. Most weeks Pieter chooses and celebrates a ‘Tree of the Week,’ but this week we break our format, and Pieter offers advice worthy of printing out and saving: Where to plant that tree?

Planting the right tree in the right place will give you maximum benefits including energy conservation, beauty and increase in property value. Planting the wrong tree too close to the house will end up costing you money. To find the right tree, visit nurseries, look in the Sunset Garden Book and other publications such as Trees for a Green L.A.-Los Angeles Home Tree Guide. But what is the right place?

1. Provide summer shade by planting evergreens or deciduous trees on the east and west sides of the house. Shade windows, doors and air conditioners. Shade patios and driveways.

2. Plant deciduous trees, not evergreens, on the south side for summer shade and winter sun.

3. Evergreens provide year round greenery and privacy. Deciduous trees may provide fall color and will let winter sun through.

4. You get the most climatic benefit from trees planted less than 20 feet away from the house. Small trees, to 25 feet tall, shade walls and windows, medium trees, 25 to 40 feet, shade the roof of a single-story building and the walls of a two-story one, and large trees, over 40 feet, give the most complete cover. Plant only small trees under power lines.

5. To prevent any future damage to the structure, the safe distance away from the wall of the house is half the ultimate crown width of the tree, so plant a 40-foot wide tree 20 feet away from the house. If you really must get closer as many people insist on doing, stay an absolute minimum of one-quarter of the ultimate width away, so 10 feet of distance for a tree that will grow 40 feet wide. This is assuming that the tree does not have an invasive root system. But once you plant closer to the house than 10 to 12 feet you’ll find that you have to do more pruning, the trunk leans away from the wall and leaves will fall on the roof. If you insist on planting at five feet away from the house or less, you likely invite future disaster and you may be immune to advice. But at least consider the liability to the future owner of your house and ponder whether you would want to face similar trouble when you buy a house.

Thanks, Pieter
E-mail Pieter: plseve@earthlink.net
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