I believe that your biggest hurdle is going to be the width of your planting strip. Two feet is very restrictive. Some trees simply need more than that for a strong and healthy root system.

Another concern with that is going to be the potential damage to the sidewalk. I don't know how your municipality will handle that situation if you plant a tree that lifts and/or breaks the sidewalk. A couple of years ago, we got a significant snowstorm (we normally don't get much snow here) and I salted the sidewalk...now the sidewalk is crumbling at each expansion joint. I called the city to ask about having it repaired and was told that in my city, the sidewalks are the responsibility of the owner...and they warned me that if I don't do anything about it, I could be sued if someone tripped on the damaged parts. So if you plant a tree and it ruins the sidewalk, you may be held responsible for repairing it.

I've also read that certain communities have restrictions on the types/varieties of trees that one can plant in the planting strip. Many communities have those strips as city-owned property, but the responsibility of the homeowner to maintain. Be sure to check that what you are looking at is acceptable to the city.

Green Vase Zelkova is supposed to be a good choice for street tree plantings, although some things I had read said it is starting to be overused. There are other varieties of Zelkova and some are more wide than they are tall, so you would want to avoid those varieties. Musashino is a narrow variety, but you might find it to be too narrow for what you want.

I would take a walk through your neighborhood and see what trees are planted in the narrow strips. Pay attention to the sidewalks to see if they are being lifted, broken by those trees or if the sidewalks next to those trees have already been replaced. This will definitely give you a good idea as to what choices you might have in your area.

-I want the tree to go up before branching out.

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good luck with that part

and if you only have a 2 foot planting area .. i dont see how you buy a bigger tree with a large root mass ....

what does the city think about you using their space in the easement???

ken

I'm not a fan of zelkovas but I have seen them seemingly thrive in small tree pits and tolerate some serious urban conditions and hard butchering. there are some where they are not only in very restricted brick planters, inches away from the road, but they regularly put flowers in what little soil area there is. I don't know how they are still alive but they have been there for years. I haven't seen them damage walkways in tree pit plantings but this is always a possibility if not an eventuality.

Originally the whole area was planted with elms but those are long gone. About the only tree's around are 20-30 year old maple and oak and the occasional 100 year oak that is bulged out over the curb and sidewalk. I would plant an oak but am wanting a large tree quicker then the oak can grow.

The city did put in some small shade trees (20' when mature) a street over and cut out a notch in the sidewalk from the tree lawn and put in one of those metal grate things. I could probably do something similar to get maybe 3-4' instead of 2'

The sidewalk is something I would be willing to take responsibility for. To me having to pay to replace it at some future time is worth the shade a tree would provide.

Ken-
I would put in as large of a tree as I can. I was going to have a tree service plant it since they offer a free replacement, planted, if the first should die so the exact size of tree to go in will be up to them.

The city has an approved tree list for the easment and the Village Green Zelkova is on it, spoke with a city employee and they said the process is only difficult if I try and have the them pay for it and put it in. If I pay to put it in they are much more likely to make exceptions to the type of tree and placement. One thing that works in my favor is the utter lack of places to plant a tree using current practices within a 20 block radius. Not enoough room on the street and the houses are too close together. There is no "good" place anywhere so the city employee said that they are more willing to be lenient in cases like this.

gardningrandma-
I have heard the same thing, its good to hear that someone else has too. Its one of the reasons I narrowed it down to the zelkova because I know that any tree there will have a harder then normal life.

Brian, I am picturing a pretty neat slightly older neighborhood. I like how your house sounds like it sits up from the road.

My first thought is something small to medium sized. Keep you clear of the power lines. For years our local power company let maintenance go then following a bad storm they went crazy clearing trees from the right of way. I would hate for that to happen to you.

Perhaps dogwood or a more upright japanese maple?

First of all, your city may control the species that go in the ridiculously undersized treelawn. You will want to check that first to avoid fines.

Second, the only thing that will go in there is a small tree. Zelkovas are the last thing you want in there, as they easily achieve 24" caliper. At 16-18", they will start breaking the sidewalk. If it were my town and you put a zelkova in there, I'd make you pay for the street and sidewalk damage.

Third, your small tree choice will be limited as street sweepers, mail trucks, UPS trucks and garbage trucks will all slam into your branches, breaking them. So you don't want a vase-shaped small tree. That severely limits your choices.

Suboptimal situation doesn't begin to describe the conditions here. That means you don't get what you want and you will have to settle for the 2-5 likely spp. that will fit. Sorry to rain on your parade.

Dan

Suboptimal indeed. Space is too small for a large tree and a small tree is too short to be useful. If I were standing on my front porch I would be eye level with the top of a 20' tall tree, not much shade potential from that.

I will be getting a permit so the tree I put in would be approved.

What is the minimum space of non-concreted space a zelkova or similar lage tree would require? Would a cutout in the edge of the sidewalk covered with one of those metal grates be acceptable? The grate would be resized or removed as the tree grew. I might have some options with the city to make some room for the tree but only want to persue them if they will be big enough.

Here is a picture of what I got, my house is the one in the foreground. For size reference the pine tree next to the house is approximately 30' tall.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Ve48S8fIpr3ljgHFx4u5nw?feat=directlink

The other option I have is to plant up above the retaining wall on each side of the staircase. Would the roots bust out the wall or would planting the tree next to the wall cause it to be weak in one direction (towards the house) because of the lack of roots in the other to keep it from being blown over? The grass patch is 15x15' and it is high enough up that the zelkova would probably branch out above instead of in the wires running down the street.

Nice house...

Planting in your yard would probably give you more options (unless there's an HOA that dictates what you can plant). I would not plant a tree next to the wall, as you would be inviting trouble. Around here, the city is using (waaaaay too much) columnar maples and they are in 4' or 6' square cutouts in the sidewalk. Actually, there seems to be a better amount of shade than one would expect from a columnar tree. Perhaps something to consider...planting more toward the middle of your upper yard spaces...plus you will have a 5' height advantage over a street-level planting.

Oh boy. Saw the pic. That's going to be tough to work with.

Well Zelkova may eventually reach a huge size but it won't INSTANTLY achieve a huge size. You obviously realize this is a temporary planting. If you can find something in about a 5 gallon container that grows fast but not too aggressively, I think you can remove it, rinse and repeat. Before it becomes a problem for anyone or anything.

The Zelkovas I have seen are in even tighter spaces than that but they could have been there before the brick planter and paver sidewalk were built around it.

Even though it's not an ideal permanent site, I would probably plant something there anyway. Okame Cherry maybe. I'd plant a couple now and a couple in 3 years, that way you'll always have a tree even if you have to remove and it shouldn't be a bother to the utility lines before it has to come out. I wouldn't plant anything real tall because of that.

Up on the house level I'd plant some relatively lower growing, non-aggressive shrubs there and make a nice hedge.

Here is the work done on concrete breakage:

As you can see, your damage probability is near certain with a zelkova and note what the assumption is.

Also, your overhead lines are problematic as well and further limit your choices.

I doubt that - if there is anyone with a brain in Forestry Dept - that you'll get permitted for zelkova or anything larger than mature size of 25-30' in the ROW. You can try your private property for a better chance at something useful, like a columnar hornbeam or something along that line - hard to say as we don't know where you are. Roots certainly an issue with masonry of that (suspected) vintage, surely.

I suspect the plat is very old and the street widened after the buggy whip industry went under in favor of the motor car, and the treelawn suffered as a result. But the Planner in me loves that architecture of the house and neighborhood plat, even tho the urban forester in me has a frowny-face at the situation.

Dan

I will look at the columnar maple, a higher quantity of those might just work.

I just got home and measured, the tree lawn is 32" (not 24"), sidewalk is 6', and paved area between sidewalk and retaining wall is 10". I will verify with the city of course but I am pretty sure that the minimum sidewalk width required is 4' so a notch cut out of it for the tree might be a possibility.

Dan-
Thank you for the picture. I have not been able to find much info about the Green Vase Zelkova but I am assuming it is in the 36" range? What amount of space cutout would you recommend for it? There is enough interest in the area from some key people employed by the city that they are willing to work with you on things like this in order to restore some of the charm, such as tree lined streets. I don't know what is possible until I ask, I just prefer to have a solid plan A, B, C, etc before I walk in there to talk to them.

While I would prefer a big tree as anything less then 40' will be useless for shade since the house sits so far above street level, I do accept defeat when something is impossible... but not without a lot of trying first.

Dan-
Also, I will need to replace the sidewalks soon anyway. They are going on 80+ years old now and the top surface has started to crumble to gravel. Is there a way to build the replacement sidewalk so it wouldn't heave if a tree were planted nearby? Would this be a possible way around not enough having enough room or is it still ill advised?

Brian,

o Your overhead lines preclude zelkova. No one with any sense in Forestry will permit one at that parcel. Or any tree of that height. No one is going to change code for you so the taxpayers can pay a contractor to clearance prune every three years in a fiscal future with much less tax revenue coming in.

o 32" is the same as 24". Sidewalk width may (if you are lucky) be reduced 12", giving you a whopping 44". If somehow in this fiscal environment some way they repave and reroute which I doubt (as ADA and safety say no way), that is 52" in a perfect world without ADA. But if you are lucky somehow you have max 42", which won't hold anything over 12" caliper. At least you are less likely to break pavement with a small ornamental tree with that width.

o There are several permeable pavers out there for such sidewalk apps, if you are very lucky the unknown city will permit it, but I wouldn't count on them paying install so that will be on you. You should count on - if somehow this happens - the city will remove and you will replace, so wherever you are will likely be ~$3-3.50/sf with permitting and insurance bond and safety - ~200 sf x 3.00 for permeable pavers for a small ornamental tree, not including root barriers. If you are on the hook for all cost, then that's a fine sidewalk, yessir, that you won't get back on the appraisal.

Dan

40' isn't going to happen with the overhead lines.

Also, you really need 6+ feet wide street lawn for anything that is going to get 40' tall in your lifetime and not damage the pavement. Even if you had brick pavers or rubber tiles or something better, 3' or 4 feet or even 5 is not enough.

Thank you for the help, I have definitely learned a lot. I'm not sure if its even worth planting anything now.

Part of my assumption was based on these small (20' tall 12" caliber when mature) tree's that they, the city, planted in a 1' tree lawn a couple blocks over (under lower hanging lines then the ones in front of my house). Also, the 30 year old red oaks down the street in the same 32" tree lawn, under the pictured wires, were planted by the city too. They never repair the sidewalks and they never prune any tree's except for the ones under the high voltage feeder lines, so that might be why they do and allow such things. There is a 50' red maple with at least a 36" trunk a couple houses down that those wires go right through. I don't know how old it is but it is obvious that it has never been trimmed from around the wires. You can probably see why my assumptions seemed somewhat wild now eh :)

Dan-
Sorry, I am purposefully not mentioning the city I live in. I don't want to tie a picture of my house, my name, and the city where I live all together. I am paranoid like that.

I guessed from reading your post that you lived in a very urban neighborhood, then I saw your picture, and yep!

I live in Cleveland, so I know all too well about small spaces to garden. Luckily my front tree lawn is a good 7' wide and my side one is 4', but still, I know the feeling.

It sounds like you live in a fairly well-run town/city if you were able to get hold of the city's forestry/tree department.

I love the city of Cleveland, but there are so many more important things to be doing, that they honestly couldn't care less about what I plopped in my tree lawn. So I put what I wanted there. I wouldn't do it again, because I could have hit a gas pipe or something, but still, it wasn't worth going through the official channels and going through a huge bureaocracy downtown. No one is gonna show up and do anything. People let tree of heavens grow in their tree lawns, they plant whole gardens in their tree lawns...the city doesn't bother with citations or the like.

ANYhoo, a honey locust would be good for that spot. They aren't too prone to breakage and I've seen them grow in the most inhospitable urban spots. There will, of course, be some breakage of sidewalk over time but I haven't seen honey locust be too bad about that.

We are responsible for our own sidewalks, too.

I never bothered with the city so I don't know what we were allowed here, but they are silly anyway. On the side street portion of my yard (I'm on the corner), they were planting crabapples on the tree lawns (that were already 10')...even though the electrical wires were only a grand total of 12' from the ground. D'oh. And people grow what they want where they want so it's not an issue here. If I called them to put a tree in my tree lawn, I could guarantee you I would have to wait at least a month, and then they'd plop it in the ground wrong, and it would just be a mess.

That being said I'd vote for honey locust. In my real-world looking around, they do the best in tough situations like that. Not sure about zelkova.

Do not get a large one to start with, though. Not for that small of a spot. Would be a mistake.

I know Dan won't care too much for my post, but oh well :).

If you can live with 20', you have options. There are a number of trees that are safe for planting under powerlines. The okame cherry trees that I mentioned are probably amonst them. But didn't you say you didn't want anything that small because you didn't want to see just the tops of the trees?

And just because somebody planted a tree that damaged the paving somewhere else doesn't mean the city is going to let that happen again. Just when that tree starts to get to a decent size the utility will come send a crew a long to cut the trees. Usually they top off leaving you with an ugly hat rack. Only rarely do they prune the trees so they grow around the wires.