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What Small Trees Can I Plant Close to My Home?

“Is there a type of ornamental tree that I can plant within 6 feet of my house (in zone 5)?” Amy of Grand Rapids, Michigan

Answer: Aside from being attractive and suited to your garden and area, any tree that you choose must be compact and have a root system that is somewhat shallow. Here are five selections that are both beautiful, compact, and native.

  1. Lavender Twist® Weeping Redbud (Cercis canadensis ‘Covey’): This small tree reaches between 8-12 feet when fully mature, but its weeping crown maintains a tidy, compact appearance. Redbuds are native to eastern North America and have beautiful spring flowers of purplish-red. Grow this one in full sun and well-drained fertile soil.
  2. Spring Glory® Serviceberry (Amelanchier canadensis ‘Sprizam’): White spring blooms, edible summer fruits that attract birds, and orange-red fall leaves make this an outstanding 12-foot small tree for home gardens. Grow this one in full to partial sun. 
  3. Golden Shadows® Pagoda Dogwood (Cornus alternifoliaWstackman’)The gold and green foliage of this 10- to 12-foot variegated dogwood will light up any partially shaded location around the home. 
  4. Fringe Tree (Chionanthus virginicus): Loads of delicate, fringed, fragrant ivory flowers in spring make this small tree an excellent specimen to plant near a home. Mature specimens may reach 12 to 20 feet, so this is on the larger end of what you can plant close to the home. Full to partial sun is preferred.
  5. Blue Arrow Juniper (Juniperus scopulorum ‘Blue Arrow’): Here’s an evergreen option that hails from Colorado. It has tidy blue-green foliage and a narrow, upright habit. Trees reach just 12 feet at maturity. Full sun is required.

[Click here for an excellent guide on how to plant and site trees and shrubs.]

I hope that this helps!

Happy gardening,

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

Can I Grow Vegetables Indoors in a Sunny Room?

Can I grow vegetables in this sunny room?

“Is it possible to grow any vegetables indoors in a sunny room with a grow light? I live in NE PA and we have long cold winters. I would love to grow veggies over the winter. I have a room that I think would work.” Question from Melanie or Susquehanna, Pennsylvania

Answer: What a nice space! You can certainly grow container vegetables in your bright, sunny room. It offers so much natural sunlight that only some supplemental grow lights will be needed, if any. Vegetables will grow best in the sunniest window. A south-facing exposure is optimal.

Supplemental light may only be needed if you grow fruiting vegetables that need extra sunlight, like tomatoes and peppers. Greens and herbs should not need supplemental light; your bright windows and skylights should be enough. As far as grow light options, if you need to supplement choose a tall, adjustable grow light (click here for an example). (Click here for more information about different grow light types and options.)

From there, I recommend that you watch the video and read the article below. They should give you all the details that you need to grow vegetables inside.

Happy gardening,

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

The Best Vegetables and Fruits for Indoor Growing

Southwestern Sustainable Farmscaping: Planting for Home Livestock

 

The right plants can provide needed cover for livestock, repel insects, and serve as forage.

Everywhere across the American Southwest, folks are raising chickens, milking goats, horses, and grazing their own cattle. The rural way of life is evolving towards animal care and organic gardening. Dependence on livestock is creeping into the suburbs, too, where clean, efficient animal keeping is bumping up against the traditional backyard. This requires livestock areas to look good from the house, require minimal care, and efficiently benefit our homes and lifestyles. These requirements are achieved with good choices.

Small Farm Animal Needs

It starts with animal needs. Choose plants that are beneficial to livestock such as insect repelling and animal-friendly natives and exotics. These should be able to take the dust of the dry season caused by winds picking up particles loosened by animal movement on hard soil. The plants should also be able to take the reflected heat of afternoons. Hot spots occur in the uncovered ground, paving, dark shed roofs, and heat-absorbing metal animal enclosures.

Here are four strategies for sustainably supporting home livestock through smart planting practices.

Strategy 1 – Provide Good Cover

Grapevines are ideal for shading outdoor animal enclosures from the direct summer sun and protecting poultry from raptors. (Image by Maureen Gilmer)

Plant deciduous vines to cover chicken coops that lack sufficient summer shade. When the leaves fall, the warming winter sun can come through. Good options are table or wine grapes or vigorous trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans).  Covering open coops with summer vines also halts overhead predation by blocking the view from above.  If birds of prey can’t see your hens, they won’t swoop down to take them.

Strategy 2 – Plant for Protection

Establish insect-repelling plants around your barn to repel flies and provide repellent cuttings for feeding areas. (Image by Maureen Gilmer)

Plant attractive insect-repelling herbs around the outside of your animal pens to help them blend in visually with other useful plants. Herbs with pungent oils are potent and most animals don’t graze on these plants. A pungent native option is white sage (Salvia apiana) used by Native Americans to keep pests out of homes. A mint called pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium) is also known as fleabane because it is abhorrent to fleas and other pests. Put fresh cuttings into nest boxes and blend into the bedding as a pest preventative. Other repellent candidates include fennel, lavender, rosemary, and tansy (golden tansy (Tanacetum vulgare ‘Isla Gold’) is prettiest), all of which make fine landscaping that prevents other pests and flies around pens.

Clip your herb plants to release oils into the ambient area to drive away flies. As the oils release their aroma, they also cover up unpleasant animal odors in the heat and humidity of summer.

Strategy 3 – Plant a Tree

The blue 25-gallon water trough is dumped onto the yellow flowering palo verde tree whenever it is cleaned. (Image by Maureen Gilmer)

Plant a good tree or large shrub beside every water trough and faucet. This is because water troughs must be cleaned often, and the dirty recycled wastewater is actually beneficial to plants. Make it easy to pour or siphon out your troughs for an alternative irrigation strategy when it doesn’t rain enough for a rain barrel irrigation system. These trees will also provide more comfortable trough filling for the suburban farmer and trough drinking for the animals.

(Editor’s Note: Trees can do even more. Planting working trees for livestock, also termed silvopasture, is a planting practice where the right beneficial trees for the right regions are planted in ways that allow them to become living barns, windbreaks, and even forage for your animals. (Click this USDA document to learn more.))

Strategy 4 – Avoid Dangerous Plants

Barbed or spiny plants can be harmful to livestock, even if they taste good.

Finally, avoid plants that may pose physical of chemical dangers to animals. These include poisonous plants and those with dangerous thorns and spines.

There are many plants that pose physical dangers. Be careful of spiny cacti and succulents. Just keep them well away from animal areas. Roses, barberries, and sharp yuccas are also problematic. Removing spiny weeds, like star thistle (Centaurea solstitialis), sharp foxtail grasses, and ripgut brome (Bromus diandrus), is also important.

Beware of toxic plants such as oleander, Chinaberry tree fruit, and many others, such as Euphorbias, that contain poisonous sap adapted to discourage herbivory in the wild. Some large trees, such as black cherry (Prunus serotina) are very toxic to ruminates, like cattle, sheep, and goats. (Click here to learn more about the most poisonous garden and landscape plants to avoid and, click here for a list of poisonous pasture weeds in the American West.)

Planting your livestock-inhabited yard, small farm, or ranch property properly will make animal care easier, less resource-intensive, and above all good planting can result in fewer chores. Don’t let your farmscape look like a desert wasteland or a junkyard. Every farm is a garden, every ranch a zoo. When they blend together into a holistic organic environment for humans and beasts alike, you have the ultimate family home and garden.

Well-placed trees can be fed and irrigated by trough water and provide cover, windbreaks, and even forage for livestock.