If you plant Thuja plicata 'Green Giant' trees where your schematic shows that you first intended to plant Leylands, you will end up with a more resitant tree to pests and disease. These trees used to be hard to find in my local nurseries back in Fall of 2004. In fact, only one local nursery in my area had this tree. A local cemetary had ordered one hundred of the T P 'GG' trees from this nursery, and at the time of order, it took this local nursery 2 years to find a grower who could ship them 200. In Fall of 2004 it blessed me to discover that this local nursery had the trees, when no other nursery in town carried them. Ever since then this and other local nurseries have continued to offer T P 'GG' for sale. The first Nursery to sell these trees locally has proven stock which has survived drought, late season freezes in the early Spring, and severly destructive freezing rain events, which all over the city caused the worst destruction to even mature trees. Yet both their's and my GGs have survived nicely. This part of northeastern OK also receives lots of gusting wind events. Today we are forecast to have high winds with gust speeds up to 35 mph. Still none of my well established Thuja's have ever blown over. GG trees do not suffer damage from snow load, and my established ones did not break or uproot even when we received four days of off and on rain which froze once the icing coated the GG's branches. These young 9 feet tall trees did not break. In fact even though the weight of the increasingly accumulating ice buildup caused the tops my GGs to bend all the way to the ground, none of them broke, and there was no branch failure. Not one of these trees were pulled up by the roots from the weight of the ice bending their tops to the ground. My Thuja plicata Green Giants performed that well, even when during this bad icing event, my two 20 feet tall Shumardi oak trees suffered just over 50% canopy branch failure. On the back boundry area of a 1/2 acre vacant lot I own, among a staggered row of Loblolly pine trees which were still young enough to have lower branching, but had also grown almost 15 feet tall, 4 of them that were more toward the middle of the planting had main leader trunks, which due to the destructive icing event, snapped about 5 - 6 feet up from the ground. Even so, my Thuja Plicata GGs did not snap off, suffer branch failure, or uproot. Of course, in windy conditons, 5-6 feet tall GGS do have to be staked when they are first planted, late Summer 2007, I planted two staggered rows of some 5-6 feet tall GGs as a north windbreak in the northerly back yard of a house which experiences almost a wind tunnel affect. These trees did not have to be staked until the icing event described above occured. Once they get the chance to become well established, by Spring 2009, I feel confident that their stakes can be removed and these GGS should do fine even during sever wind producing...

did you notice how extreme last winter was??? ... that is the most likely answer ... and it didnt help.. that it was probably still suffering from drought .. not to mention its planted next to a driveway.. and reflected winter sun and retained heat is not helpful ... lol.. you are lucky its alive .. lol speaking of which.. its an extremely short lived plant ... 10 to 15 years max ... and i am thinking yours is around 10 years old??? .. they suffer from black knot and gummosis ... see link its also planted a bit close to the house for its potential.. which is the basis of your complaint ... yes you could learn how to prune on it ... but??? would you consider removal and planting something better ...??? i suspect... it might start suckering wildly from the bottom as a reaction to its stresses... and that would be multiplied if you start cutting hard on it what do you think?? ken ps: if you are interested in learning pruning.. this would be a great plant to experiment on.. but keeping in the back of your mind... that it will.. most likely.. have to go ...so you cant really do wrong ... Here is a link that might be useful: link

Thanks, Calamondin was high on my list of selections, with a Meyer as a close second (mostly because they've already seen the Meyer, and so already know it's gorgeous). I know the florescents lose their effectiveness the farther away it is, but these are the compact, 1500 footcandle sort, and they'll probably be within 18 inches of the tree. One will be directly over head, and it'll be about a foot or so above it (it'll be on a table, and the sconce will beam the light down on it), and the other two will be on a floor lamp that is purchased specifically for the tree, therefor will be placed right next to it. It'll 'spotlight' the tree within 10 inches or so. I'm guessing it'll likely get enough light to do decently well for itself, with the 3 bulbs on it like that, at that range. I informed my family when the threw their "we want a lemon tree, too," tantrum, that changes will have to be made, and I plan on making those changes before I make the purchase. I'm trying hard to do good by the tree. And oy, is it cave like. I think even your little dark image of my livingroom falls short. It's a long, narrow livingroom with exactly two, small windows on opppisite sides of the "hallway", which face a fence. Nothing in that livingroom would survive without lots of electric lights, including the people who live here. *laugh*

There are some nice Catalpa trees in the Portland metro area as well as Milwaukie. they are pretty, but you do have to re shape them every few years or the limbs sort of self prune from the weight of the leaves. They are really nice old trees and you can shape them to some extent. Be prepared to have to prune extensively every other year or so. The "Hazelnut" or Filbert, to this 3rd generation Oregonian has some draw backs as well. It is not a tree that makes a long standard trunk, then branches out, rather the crotch of the tree is naturally about 3 ft off the grond frequently. You may find some that are more to a taller standard, but they tend to limb out wide and low. this makes them good for a kids fort, or an orchard, but not tall and narrow, unless you can train up a "sucker" which will shoot up tall and straight off the base of the trunk. These are usually not seen as desirable, and removed, how ever, if one does "get away from you" they tend to be taller than the parent tree. these trees must be trimed, suckers cut, sprayed for bugs, unless you never intend to eat the nuts, but leave them all for the birds, and I am not sure if you can find anything in an organic for this. It is a beautifull tree, but I doubt its what you want. Elderberry trees that are nice, but so far the crab apple seems like it might be your best bet. you can get a dwarf, and that will help some.