What to Avoid When Planting a Tree in Your Yard

Flowers, bushes, and trees are great choices when it comes to adding life to a yard or garden. Just like any other plant, trees have needs and traits specific to their species. Before a Vistas of Summerlin homeowner buys a tree for their yard or garden, they need to check how tall it gets, how fast it grows, how much sun it needs, and so on. Knowing what the tree needs before buying it will help prevent purchasing a bad tree that is more inconvenient than it’s worth. However, there are some traits that homeowners need to pay extra attention to. Here is what all homeowners need to know about a tree before adding it to their yard or garden.

The Type of Root System

Some trees have very shallow root systems that spread over a large area, and others have roots that reach very far down into the earth. It’s important to know what type of roots a tree has because they can potentially cause a lot of damage to the home, sidewalk, road, or anything built near it. A tree’s root system can even potentially cause a home’s foundation to break. If this happens, repairing the foundation is a costly bill, so homeowners should avoid this in the best way that they can. Homeowners should research the type of roots their chosen tree has and plant it in a location where it is unlikely to harm anything around it.

The Tree’s Size

When purchasing a new tree, it will likely be a young tree that is only a few years old and small enough to transport in the back of a car. Over the years, that tree will grow, and if the homeowner is unaware of its maximum height, it could cause a lot of problems. If the tree is planted too close to a powerline, in 15 years, its branches could get tangled in the wires, which is an extreme safety hazard. It can also be a good idea to look into how quickly a tree will grow. Some species grow extremely quickly, while some take a long time to show any major changes.

How Much It Sheds

In autumn, deciduous trees shed their leaves, giving homeowners a lot of work, raking and bagging up all of the leaves for the recycling service to take. Of course, larger trees produce more leaves, and smaller trees produce fewer leaves. However, the species of tree also influences how many leaves a tree has. Some trees have fewer, larger leaves, while other trees have a lot more smaller leaves. This can make a big difference when it’s time to start raking. Small leaves can sometimes fit through the slats in the rake, making it more difficult to get them into a pile. If this is something a homeowner is concerned with, they need to take the size of the leaves and how many there are into account.

Nuts, Pinecones, and Other Debris

In addition to leaves, many trees also shed debris such as nuts and pinecones onto the ground. This means homeowners have yet another chore to take care of when maintaining their yards. Any sort of large debris from trees needs to be picked up by hand. If a homeowner tries to use their lawnmower to collect them or just in attempt to  break them up, they could hurt the lawnmower, or the mower could launch them back out, injuring someone or damaging something.

While trees are a great way to bring life into a yard or garden to boost your home's curb appeal, it's important to remember not all trees are the same. Homeowners need to take care and do the research to find the species of tree that’s right for them so they don’t get one that causes more harm than good.