David Epstein: Hi I am David Epstein and today I’m with Wayne Mezzit and we’re talking trees—big trees, shade trees and we’re going to start with—

Wayne Mezzit: Oak trees—the fastest growing of the trees that do well for the home owner.

David Epstein: When someone goes to a nursery, there are so many trees that can be a bit overwhelming and even we get to a variety like oak, there are a lot of oak trees, talk to that a little bit.

Wayne Mezzit: We carry three basic types of oak trees; the red oak, the one that is so red in the fall, that’s pretty fast growing, the white oak which is one that becomes so massive in the forest and then we have oaks that are special purpose ones like the upright green pillar red oak that grows so narrow that make a wonderful entry way along the driveway.

David Epstein: So Wayne, for a home owner that does not want to lot of carry maintenance to these trees pretty hardy disease wise.

Wayne Mezzit: They really are very low maintenance. Once they are established in the ground, which takes a year or two, there is virtually nothing to do. If you buy small one, sometimes, you need to do some pruning in order to get the branching up as high as you wanted but most of the trees that are available in the garden centers, they are pretty well structured and they really don’t get any pest either, there are very few pest that bother them. Let me show you some other trees.

David Epstein: All right, great.

Wayne Mezzit: It started to rain David, so I wanted to show you the katsura trees and the linden trees. The katsura tree is quite upright growing when it’s young but hen it spreads out, it becomes a magnificent tree with time, very easy to grow, it’s even got fragrant foliage in the fall.

The linden trees also turn into a very large tree and they are quite seedy, taller, they will take a lot of different conditions. The one thing you have to watch out for is the Japanese beetles. So if you have Japanese beetles, you may have to treat the tree in order to keep the leaves from getting tottered.

David Epstein: And how tall will the linden tree grow?

Wayne Mezzit: It will get 50 ft. taller so and the same with the katsura tree. I want to show you one more tree; the beech tree. It’s one of my favorite.

David Epstein: It’s also one of my favorites. I love it. I know where we’re going and nothing stops us here at Growing Wisdom; rain and all. I’ll hold the umbrella for you sir.

Wayne Mezzit: Thanks.

These are the purple beech. This one with purple leaves all summer. It’s a fabulous tree. And behind us are the green types. This one is a weeping one that forms a magnificent canopy over a large—I like to see them in a large lawn. It’s got that undulating massive branching that is so attractive all winter of the snow on the big branches.

David Epstein: And you’d need a huge lawn for that. That can’t go near a house like—

Wayne Mezzit: We don’t want to put it near—any place where it’s going to get too big because if you want to prune it, it destroy the effect.

David Epstein: Wayne, thank you. So there you have it, several trees for you, for shade that will get quite large to the largest, the beech tree. Come back every week for all of our tips and some helps here at Growing Wisdom.