I do believe that the silver maple is indigenous to IL. Both the redbud and the pagoda dogwood are nice trees, thought of mostly as understory trees. If you could fit another larger tree in the mix, that would be nice. I love my buttonbush! I found my first butterfly on it last yr. The new jersey tea is nice too, however, they both bloom white and are very different in sizes. I wouldn't want an elderberry anywhere near any of these plants. It will swallow them. We found it coming up 15' away from the original plant! In all directions! Then we yanked it. I have the red and the black chockberry, I do remember hearing it has choke in the name for a reason. Mine are still small, so I can't comment on that. If you can get your hands on a couple viburnums (or as many as your yard will handle!), the birds would thank you. I never did see them eat any elder-berries, they pick clean the viburnums however. You need 2, but they have to be clones, it's all very confusing. Just plant a lot of them and you won't have any worries. Say you get a viburnum dentatum from this plant sale, then you order another one online from Prairie Moon Nursery. You'll get berries when they get the right size. Doesn't have to be PMN, can be anywhere, so long as it doesn't come from where ever your plant sale got theirs.

Mind if I ask where the plant sale is? It isn't the one in Schaumburg, is it?

Here is a link that might be useful: Prairie Moon Nursery viburum dentatum

I'd love to know the location, too. I'm 20 miles west of the city. Are you near St. Charles? Have you been to the Natural Gardens nursery there? They specialize in natives and I've never visited but it's on my list this spring.

Have you thought about serviceberries? Great fruit for you and the birds.

I had forgotten about the Schaumburg sale...now you have me looking at the plant list for that sale too! The sale I was referring to is actually in Wheaton on 4/30. I had looked into both of them last year and thought the Wheaton one had a little more of a selection and it was a bit cheaper. I actually went to the Wheaton one last year right when it opened but didn't realize how crowded it would be and didn't have enough time to wait in the line to pay. I did get some free woodchips though. Here is a link to more info http://www.wheaton.il.us/news/pressreleases/detail.aspx?id=6302. The Schaumburg sale is the next day I think and there is one in Oakbrook at Mayslake I think the next weekend.

I did go to Natural Gardens years ago, but have not been back since I got more into natives. What I like about the Wheaton sale is that the shrubs and trees are only $15 for 3-5 gallons and that is what I mainly want. They have a pdf with the plant list and prices at the link.

I did look into Serviceberry which are very good for birds, but I didn't think they could handle the dry conditions under the maples.

Thanks for the advice about the elderberry. I only wanted it because I thought the berries would be good for birds. I got a small 'Black Lace' elderberry last year, but I don't know if it will fruit much even.

I do have some of the arrowwood viburnums that I got a few years ago. I got one 'Blue Muffin' and three 'Autumn Jazz', but the 'Autumn Jazz' hasn't really had any decent fall color yet like it is supposed to. The berries were eaten quickly so I know somebody likes them.

I really am wanting the buttonbush because they just look so cool, I was just concerned because I read it could get up to 12 feet tall by 18 feet wide.

I do want to get some new trees started under those silver maples too. I know they are native here, but they really need more room than we have. They are way taller than our two story house and our yard is only two car lengths deep and not much wider than that. The amount of flowers, helicopter seeds, and small branches that drop from these trees is MASSIVE.

The last two years they (along with just about every other maple in the area) have had cottony maple scale which drips honeydew all season on everything. Every surface from the house to the car and every plant leaf below gets covered in the maple syrup like goo. The honeydew also promotes this black mold to grow in it so not only is everything sticky, but it also looks dirty.

Even with all that we would still probably want to keep the trees, but I can't see how they will survive long after the road/sewer work was done. The crew was under the sidewalk along our front yard with a chainsaw cutting roots in a hole probably six feet deep the whole length of the yard. That can't be good.

Sorry for my overly long tree story:) I just hate when people take down trees for no reason, but in this case I think it may be inevitable. I just hope to have more trees already growing before they come down. Every time a house sells around here lately it seems the first thing the new people do is take out all the trees and shrubs, break out the gallon jug of weed kiler, and lay down sod.

You know how long it took me to get it so that I stayed logged in at this forum? It kept logging me out, at this forum only!! How frustrating!!

How do you do the links in the posts? Good grief, for as long as I've been here, I should know that! I'm going to check your link out, because if it's the day before, then it would work for me. Schaumburg won't work for me. I don't know how far Wheaton is though. I know Oak Brook, but only the mall. Oak brook is almost 2 hrs away.

Any viburnum works. www.possibilityplace.com I love that place!

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. The Natural Garden isn't The Natural Garden anymore. They're Midwest Natural Garden or something like that. They're not selling at the location where they were before, in fact they're mostly wholesale now.
http://www.thenaturalgardeninc.com/homegardener.html
That link tells you where they are and that they sell some of the most popular selections. I didn't spend a lot of time there reading, I just wanted to see if they opened it back up. I got a flyer in the mail last year advising me that they were no longer a retail operation, they were concentrating on the wholesale aspect of the business. Bummer, since I'd only known about them for about 5 yrs!

Service berries are really good! I had 2 of them. Sadly, our neighbor is letting 2 red cedars (Juniperus virginiana) volunteers grow in their yard. Mine looked like dog doo not too much into the season. Not trying to talk you out of it, just look to see if anyone around you has red cedars!

Lindera benzoin's (spicebush) are really nice. They get berries that the birds like, and they're also host to the Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly.

Your trees sound horrible. I'm not a "maple" fan. At all. All up and down this street, are nothing but maples. Except here that is! Our neighbor alone has 2 and we get the little helicopters...hate cleaning those things up before they sprout! Look at Possibility Place's site, to just look over the variety of trees you could have. I still think one large tree, with both the smaller trees would work. I don't mind cramming....walked in the woods lately?? ;-)

Wheaton's native plant sale is pretty awesome. Why is it only from 8:30 to noon? Do they sell out that quickly? My gosh they DO have a lot of plant material! Wish they were closer!

That Possibility Place has a lot of good stuff, but it is pretty far from me. Wheaton is just the next town over, about a ten minute drive. Last year I got there minutes after it opened and it was packed already. I think they do sell out pretty quickly especially of the cheap plugs. People came prepared too with wagons and their lists in hand. I didn't expect that much of a crowd because I don't see anyone in my neighborhood planting natives. Now I know to come early with my wagon, a list, and a plan. There is no time for casual browsing.

Unfortunately most of the trees and shrubs that I had really wanted like the serviceberry, spicebush, and witch hazel did not seem feasible after I did some reading on them. They all seem to say "needs or prefers rich acidic loamy moist soil with afternoon shade." I have yet to come across one that says "prefers dry alkaline clay soil full of dense maple roots that is shaded until the hottest part of the day when it becomes blazing sun." :) The best I am hoping for for my front yard is something that will survive. I don't expect anything to thrive in those conditions.

Oh and to do links inside the post you just need to type in the html tag for a link. Now let's see if I can get it to show the tag code without actually making a link??

<a href="PUT URL HERE">PUT LINK NAME HERE</a>

And here is a link. The links will show up in the message preview, so you will know if it worked before submitting a message.
Wheaton Plant Sale

Yesterday when I was searching for a town having a native sale that was closer to me, I came across a link that took me to Possibility Place. They told of all the towns that had native plant sales that sold their plants. Wheaton was one of them. According to the article, all the plants are theirs. I knew at Schaumburg the trees and shrubs were theirs, but I didn't know about Wheaton. It was an old article, but still on their website. If you can, call them. Possibility Place. Ask for Connor Shaw. Tell him about your site and what you're up against. He'll suggest plants for you.

There's a lot of plants that say they need one thing and can tolerate the opposite. If spicebush and serviceberries needed moist, they would die here. A lot of my plants would die here.

I found a native plant sale down in Springfield. Take me the same amount of time to get there as it would up there.....BUT, not only is this sale last until 2pm. I'm going to chance getting their mid-morning. I would think if the sale lasts until 2pm, they must have a lot of plants. Then later in mid May, they have a 2 day wildflower sale. Not sure what they're selling, at either sale. I can't any info at all. I might have to call someone to find out where to look.

Let's try this link thing that I'll never remember!

possibilityplace

OMG! That was hard! I thought you left a space between the a the href so it didn't make a link! So I slid it together! It didn't work...LOL After 6 or so tries, I finally got the right combination....lol.....

Oh! and go to the link. I found it again...where PP is talking about where all...native plant sales that is, that their plants are the plants that are sold.

Hi Molanic, I've got a large 60 year old Silver maple in the front yard too, right off the southwest corner of the house. In addition, there is another large Silver right along the property line on my neighbor's side. So I'm dealing with the same issues, they provide nice shade, but very messy, aggressive roots, dry soil, etc.

How close was the sewer work to the trees? I've hacked away at my tree's roots several times, with no apparent ill effect to the tree. Also, I treat the septic with Copper sulfate on a regular basis because its roots invade the septic tank. Again, no apparent ill effect to the tree.

I am attempting to grow some understory plants in the root zones of these trees. This includes Alternate-leaf Dogwood, Grey Dogwood, and Crabapples. They are doing okay, but they are about 20 feet away from the trunks so they're closer to the outskirts of the root zone.

Common Elderberries may work too. I adore this shrub. It grows fast, is very vigorous, and my experience has been that the birds absolutely love the berries! There is a parade of many species birds thru late summer and fall eating the berries. They also have many uses as food or supplements. While Elderberry may grow optimally in more wet soil, it holds its own in a drier spot.

New Jersey tea is probably the most drought-tolerant on your list, tolerating poor rocky soil, but from what I understand does best in full sun so would probably work along the sunnier edges. I winter-sowed these 2 years ago and got lots of germination, but they didn't make it through the first winter (in small pots).

Also consider American hazelnut, Corylus americana. This is a pretty shrub; has ornamental male catkins; flowers early and grows vigorously; and will tolerate shade and dry soil. The only drawback, is that the leaves do get nibbled on by some caterpillars - which is a little unsightly, but not really a drawback in my opinion, because they're food for the birds!

It is good to know that most of these plant sales are getting their stock from that Possibility Place. It looks like a quality operation with knowledgeable people and a helpful website.

Terrene, here are some pictures taken out our window showing the construction from about three years ago. The other picture is a satellite view of the house to show the size of the maples. In the one photo the maple tree trunk starts just outside the edge of the picture and the other maple is the same distance from the sidewalk, but on the other side of the driveway. In the other picture you can see our driveway on the right. We couldn't use our driveway or park on our own street for over a week, which was so convenient!

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In the last few years we got new neighbors on all four sides of our house. Two of the households removed all of their mature trees, and the other two hadn't had any for years. Five large healthy conifers that were not touching either of their houses or causing any problems were just gone in a few days. We used to see a lot of good birds in those trees. None of the neighbors have planted any replacement vegetation of any kind.

Just yesterday I was watching a group of yellow rumped warblers, cardinals, and couple of cedar waxwings in our maples. If our trees go too, I doubt we will see many birds anymore. I really want to get some more very wildlife valuable trees going. I will definitely look into the American hazelnut because it is available at the sale too. Thanks to all the helpful suggestions from everyone, isn't gardenweb great!

Why do people do that? Everything looks better with large trees! After hearing that, I think I'd be inclined to leave the trees and wait to see signs of distress. It does seem like maples can take a lot. The house across the street had a maple that was planted directly under the power lines, so aside from the trunk, the top of the tree was cut in a C. To say it looked odd...! My best friend had maple trees over in Braidwood. She really wanted to plant under them. The roots were practically on top of the soil, so she had someone haul in soil and we spread it out over top of all those roots. When it came to planting, we were forever running into roots. She got out the sawzall and that's how we cut the roots. I've read that you don't put soil over roots, there was no talking her out of it. That was over 18 yrs ago and the trees, when they moved out 2 yrs ago, were still fine. Now this is nothing compared to what's happened to yours. So I don't know. It's just with the birds that you're seeing, I'd be inclined to leave them. I do know a guy though that has a sawzall. I'd probably go ahead and buy a redbud and borrow that sawzall and go ahead and plant the redbud. But that's me and I've done it before.

Gray dogwood must be more tame for other people. That was another shrub that we had to remove. At the back of our very small lot, we have a privacy fence. The gray dogwood was near it, then we made a path leading from the garage to a door we'd made in the fence. After 4 yrs the dogwood was coming up on the other side of the fence, the other side of the path and you could tell that the roots were going under the garage. We've got cracks in the floor, so who knows when it's going to pop up! Ha!

I planted Silky dogwood the year after I planted the Gray dogwood. I'm not finding the Silky to be anywhere near as aggressive as the Gray was. They have it for sale at the plant sale you're going to. It's Latin name is Cornus obliqua.

I also have the Corylus americana. I like it, I like it a lot. For some reason, after I planted it, the Japanese Beetles showed up. I'd never had them before. Maybe just a coincidence. It's a spreader too, but much easier to control with the spade.

There's also more viburnums that would do great in shade. I know it says sun to part sun, most of mine are in shade and doing great.

Thanks again for all the advice. I'm going to do some measuring and make up a list for the sale of my first choices and then backups to increase my chances of getting at least a few things. I may end up just trying to plant one thing under the maples and then see how it does for the year in those conditions. Hopefully we'll be able to get a tree service out this year to look at the maples and see what they think about their health and maybe prune off some dead branches.

You're welcome! Post back and let us know what you ended up with!

Good idea too on getting a tree service out to look at your trees. I didn't realize you had dead branches in there already!

The sale was great and there were a lot of people there. I ended up getting the buttonbush, New Jersey tea, black chokeberry, and maple-leaf viburnum. I also got a few different carex grasses and golden alexanders for the rain garden.

I'm going to try out the maple-leaf viburnum under the silver maples and see how it does. Now that the maples are leafing out there are less dead branches than I thought there were. The ones that look dead aren't very big either, so that is a relief. I have been seeing warblers eating something in the maples regularly. I'm hoping they are eating the cottony maple scale bugs. :)

Ooooh!! Nice! Tell me, is that buttonbush leaving out at all? I know mine isn't dead, but it's showing no sign of life at all. It sure looks dead. I don't remember that it was so late leafing out. You're going to love everything you got at the sale!

Are you going to get an arborist out there to look at the trees and give his assessment? Might just give you some peace of mind...?

The buttonbush has four main stems coming from the ground and there are some small leaves on one of them, but just buds on the other stems. I think in the plant description it did say "late to emerge"

We may still have an arborist look at the trees, but it isn't as urgent as I had thought.

Hi Molanic, boy the canopies of those Silver maples sure dominate the front of your lot don't they? They are not an easy tree to deal with that close to the house, mine drops a zillion flowers and samaras everywhere and clog the gutter at the southwest corner of my house. But they must provide a lot a nice shade and Silver maples are great wildlife trees.

That is a shame your neighbors took out their trees. I don't understand why people want to remove screening from the neighbors but my neighbors are doing it too, while I'm planting native shrub borders to screen them out.

I am curious about how well any of your new shrubs will do planted around the maples.