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Easy but Exotic

simonbloomfield5a

15 years ago

Hello everyone. I'm really just a big time tomato grower but I have just bought a house on a 2 acre lot (1 acre is wetland). To make a long story as short as possible the house I bought was a forclosure and the jerk that used to live here not only took the patio paver blocks, kitchen sink and furnace but also dug up a dozen 10 foot pines! I'm not sure what kind they were but the neighbors told me they were pines. Anyway I have 12 large holes throughout my property where the trees once were. 4 of the trees are in partial shade about 20 feet from the wetlands with pretty thick clay soil and surrounded by large Cottonwoods. The rest of the trees are spaced about lining the driveway with the same heavy soil and partial shade. I am looking for something as close to dummy proof as possible but at the same time I would like to mix up the species a bit and possibly on the exotic side. I would like large trees towards the wetlands (near the cotonwoods) if possible. And I would like smaller (maybe dwarf) along the driveway so they do not block the LAke accross the street. Any suggestions would be helpful. I'm in Michigan zone 5a.

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Comments (4)

prostrata
15 years ago
My suggestion: towards the wetlands, plant white pine, they are fast growing and fairly fool-proof. Along the the driveway, plant Serbian spruce, it's exotic and slow growing.
User
15 years ago
There's always Taxodium (Bald cypress) and Metasequoia (Dawn Redwood). Both are very tolerant of wetlands, very fast growing, hardy down to zone 5, and non-finicky. Be warned, they also want to eventually become massive trees. The Dawn Redwood is exotic because of its prehistoric heritage and buttressed roots; the Bald cypress is exotic because there are not too many trees that will actually grow in standing water, and those weird Bald Cypress "knees" are about as exotic a picture as you can find in the plant kingdom. The Taxodium will want full sun but the Metasequoia will be more tolerant of partial sun conditions. The up side of having those pines removed is that you have a blank slate upon which to work (it can be quite expensive to have large trees removed).
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
15 years ago
pinus strobus.. white pine.. grow like weeds in MI .... and are VERY CHEAP ... no need to go to goldner welsh and pay real money for the things.. i got one gal one foot strobus at wally world a few years back for $1.99 ... and cut them down less than 5 years later when they were 15 feet tall ... once established.. they can grow 3 to 5 feet per year ... nothing to be planted close to the house mind you ... as you trabvel north on 75 .. you see them lining the highways... by the billions ....

besides those listed above .... exotic is a function of budget.. then zone ...

if you are in the bloomfield i think you are in .... a day trip to gee tree farm north of jackson state prison.. including a couple hours in their arboretum .. would be time well spent .... they offer a couple thousand variations on the theme of conifers ... and run the gambit on what exotic stuff can be grown in MI ...

good luck

ken

ps: please define what exotic means to you .... those listed in the previous post.. are plain old green plants .. that fit your fact scenario .... but i define exotic as anything but green.. including multi-colored plants ...
simonbloomfield5a
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for the suggestions. I would like something with a bit of color on the slow growing side and of course something tha can grow in clay or even standing water in zone 5? I'll start another post regarding this and see what happens

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