Tall feature trees in your designer garden make people look up. More than that, they might provide shade, pull up nutrients from deep in the earth, adding them to the earth as shed leaves. Tall trees, especially those adjusted to your climate, are a lasting way to add both beauty and comfort to your backyard or to your meadow or park area.
Here are five tall feature trees suitable for your designer garden:
These trees are located in a warm climate area and include but are not limited to Avocado, Dragon Tree, Mango, Queensland Bottle Tree, and Tree Aloes. All of them make excellent shade trees, two of which produce delicious fruits, one is frequently used in lotions, while the other two have unique shapes as well as other attractive properties.
Five Tall Feature Trees
Avocado Tree
Persea Americana is sometimes known as an alligator pear because the fruits are pear-shaped but have green, bumpy skins. An ordinary, mature avocado tree grown out of doors in a warm climate can reach heights as great as 80 feet. Dwarf varieties, developed for growing in containers, will usually top out at around twelve feet. Avocados are usually grown from cuttings, rather than from seed because the cuttings will grow more quickly and will remain true to type. Although less likely to be fruit when grown as a container plant, they grow slowly enough to be an attractive indoor ornamental. They like a frost-free, semi-tropical environment with plenty of rainfall.
Dragon Tree
The Dracaena Draco, is a special symbol for Tenerife, an island in Spain. Weather is usually warm in Tenerife, ranging from around 60 degrees Fahrenheit in February to only a little over 83 degrees Fahrenheit in August. The oldest known example of Dracaena Draco, El Drago, was declared a national monument. El Drago is about 65 feet tall. Dragon trees get their name from their red sap and from the way their cut limbs will develop two-leaf heads whenever one is cut off. The red sap, sometimes marketed as “dragon’s blood” is used in a variety of ways, including as an ingredient for incense, and to create a beautiful red finish on fine woodwork.
Mango Tree
The Mangifera Indica is a magnificent tree. Its wide leaves cast excellent shade, and scarcely any other fruit compares with the delicious flavour of its fruit. There are a number of legends about it, including that Gautama Buddha might have been inspired while resting in its shade. In a warm, moist environment, they can grow to a height of 100 feet or more, with a possible branch spread of 65 feet. They can be grown from seed, but like Avocados, they are more likely to be true to their strain when grown from cuttings. Avocado production in Australia is measured in tons – around 46,000 tons yearly. Now, that’s a lot of yummy fruit.
Queensland Bottle Tree
The Brachychiton Rupestris, can grow to as tall as 60 feet. They are well known for their distinctive wine bottle shape, but they also make excellent shade trees, including for areas where water is limited during the warmest months of the year. They are warm-weather deciduous trees, which means they drop their leaves during hot weather to limit water loss through respiration. They are sometimes used as a source of emergency feed for cattle. They are not good as cattle feed over a long period of time, however. They are absolutely majestic when used to line a driveway or when positioned in a park-like area.
Tree Aloe
The Aloidendron Barbereae, is one of the largest aloe plants. Like its smaller cousins, the fleshy fronds can be used on burns, cuts, and scrapes. If you want to make an upward statement in your garden, the snakey heads of an aloe vera tree will certainly attract attention. A little trimming will encourage the tree to put on multiple heads, thus turning it into a reasonably good shade tree. It grows slowly enough that a young tree can grow in a container for many years.
These five tall feature trees are all good choices for a warm climate garden. They are trees that create shade, and visual interest, and can rise well above medium level and short collections of plants in your garden beds.