The 20 simplest trees to care for

Everything in your garden, including you and your family, are affected by the characteristics of your trees. We'll go over the 20 easiest trees to plant and care for so that you can make a wise lifetime investment.

• While smaller plants are adaptable enough to allow you to dig and move them to find the best site, trees are deeply rooted in place. Because of this basic fact, try to imagine how the tree and your garden will appear years from now before you start planting.
• Consider the shade patterns a new tree will cast over your garden or your house, and how those patterns will change with the seasons and with the years.
• As part of this process, be sure to envision the mature size of a new tree. Most of the trees covered here are suited to fitting the scale of most houses.
• Very tall trees, such as white pines, are best planted in large, open spaces where their massive size won't make a house seem tiny in comparison.
• A tree may seem expensive at first, but in time it can grow to be more valuable than all of your other plants combined. The tree that you plant today is also one of the few plants in your garden that may outlive you, and perhaps outlive your grandchildren.
• Because tree roots are extensive, it's impossible to modify the soil to make it suit the needs of a certain tree. Instead, you should choose a species that will accept your garden's soil, sunlight, and wind without complaint.

The trees described here are generally easy to please provided their site requirements are met. Their roots and trunks are hard and tenacious and they're extremely trustworthy plants.

1. Cherry Flowering
2. Dogwood
3. False Cypress
4. Golden-Rain Tree
5. Holly
6. Hornbeam
7. Japanese Maple
8. Lacebark Pine
9. Magnolia
10. Parrotia
11. Red Buckeye
12. Redbud
13. River Birch
14. Serviceberry
15. Silverbell
16. Snowbell
17. Star Magnolia
18. Stewartia
19. White Pine
20. Yellowwood

Though it's a large investment, planting a tree now will reward you year after year as the tree grows to maturity. If you're looking for shade, longevity, and beauty, there's nothing that compares to a well-loved tree.