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If you could choose a street tree....

Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
edited September 2022 in Plants
If you could choose a street tree to go outside your own house what would you have and why.  Remember you will probably end up parking a car underneath, so no Lime or other sticky sap producers please.
AB Still learning

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Posts

  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    If I HAD to park my car there, NO tree
    Devon.
  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    The first thing I would consider is how far away from the house?
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
    Up to about 7 years ago there was a false Acacia ( can't remember the proper name Robinia something). It was very little bother and the shade was useful in summer,  but it got diseased and had to come down.  After it was felled it took years for the roots to stop sucketing though. 
    AB Still learning

  • borgadrborgadr Posts: 718
    No tree unless you want your car caked in bird poo.
    I park my runaround under a sweet chestnut. It's year-round joy - a carpet of catkins first, then chestnuts, then leaves.  Always accompanied by bird poo. My daughter moans that the car's always gross. I haven't got the heart to remove the chestnut though, it's a fine old tree!
  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    I think you did really well to keep a False Acacia going for seven years. The problem is so many trees are planted and either die year one or after a few years get to big and out they come. So sad and not very environmentally friendly. I always think a new tree is one of the biggest decisions to make.
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    It would have to be a really wide street but an ancient and massive London Plane that had never suffered municipal pruning would be my favourite.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • gjautosgjautos Posts: 429
    I would have Rowan. Fairly easy to keep smallish, no sticky mess and pretty across 3 seasons.
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    Ginkgo biloba.
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    I love seeing the flowering trees along the streets in the autumn. Magnolia, ceanothus, crab apple, mimosa, smoke bush. Maybe, if I had the space, I would choose a huge (very healthy) Blood Good acer. (I don't have a car, so can't really comment on that).
  • Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
    @GardenerSuze , no it's 7+ years since it was felled. It was a mature tree when we bought the house. I don't have to park directly underneath.  I probably won't get a choice,  but neighbour over the road who thought he was being helpful,  pointed out to council that there were 2 trees at our end of the road that had been removed and not replaced,  whereas they had planted several new one in the surrounded streets . As our houses were built in the 1930s and probably the trees were planted at the time,  a number of our street trees have succumbed in recent years.  Just wondered what others thought, would make a good specimen,  maybe away from the usual. 
    AB Still learning

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