Rosie, I have both trees but still very young, so my personal experience is limited. I mention root depth only in case you might want to plant the sort of shrubs and perennials that need a kind and gentle host under them someday, making that an issue. Trident maple is a great tree and a lovely bright fresh green here at the end of a hard summer, but it is a maple as far as roots go. I purchased my katsura at The Pottery for a really good price. Only one source suggested it's relatively shallow rooted, but I sat up and took notice since I would like to be able grow more delicate things than grass and ivy under it, but oh, well. I look forward to sitting up in our living room looking out into its branches some day and smelling the autumn foliage (which I never have). Quirky, I LOVE tulip poplars but can't put the species by the house where I'd like it because of our windy hilltop and our neighbors' warnings about branches breaking off. This is also a dry hardpanish hill and not friendly enough to have something that tall close to the house. Have you seen any of those smaller varieties with some growth on them? I'd really like to know what their shape/growth habit is like. One would be just right out in the corner of the front terrace if it had a graceful form.

Matt, We have some naturalized Kentucky Coffee trees here along our road (but not on our property) where they tend to grow in fencelines that are a mass of bird-planted natives. I like them and they are incredibly drought-tolerant, almost what I'd call droughtproof. In our two worst drought years here (2003 with a little under 19" of rainfall and 2005 with a little over 23" of rainfall) which both were "Exceptional Drought" years, they were about the last plants to show drought stress, with the only plant that was later than them being the prickly pear cacti. If I ever plant a Kentucky Coffee Tree, I'll choose one with no seed pods because the naturalized ones here drop seed pods all over creation. Believe it or not, we've planted so many trees on the once treeless portions of our property that I have to be careful now about planting any more or I'm going to shade all my veggie and fruit growing areas, a problem I'm already having on the western and northern edges of my veggie garden. I'm already having to transition some understory areas from grass to ground covers because those areas now are too shaded for grass. This is fine with me because my ultimate plan has been to shade out all the areas around the house where bermuda grass grows so we don't have to deal with mowing it twice a week for the rest of our lives. We have kept one native grassland area west of the landscaped home-garage area open for the deer and other wildlife, so that would be one place I could plant a tree or two, but I don't want to shade out all the native grassland either. Our 'civilized' parts of our property where the house, garage, yard and gardens are was just a long, narrow open area of long-fallow farm land in between two large wooded areas. When we cleared the brush before building the house, all we kept was 1 large pecan tree, 1 large post oak and a few cedars. We later removed the cedars after we saw what high-risk trees they are in grassland areas where wildfires are somewhat common and, in some years, frequent. At first, we sat here and roasted all summer long in full sunlight while we waited for our tiny trees (most were transplanted from the woods as 8-12" seedlings) to grow. After a dozen years, though, and with native trees that have made amazing growth since we planted them, the yard area is fairly shady nowadays. I'm afraid that from now on, I have to be really careful about planting more trees or we'll end up being too shady and having to remove trees. Darwin, We are on the dividing line too, in Love County which sits right along I-35 with the area east of I-35 seeming more lush and green most of the time (with higher rainfall), compared to the area west of I-35 which seems significantly drier most years (and has several inches less of rain each year) and not nearly as lush and green, especially in dry years. (Our specific place is west of I-35, though not by much.) And to add one important point about trees making good growth---when we moved here, we deliberately choose to transplant teeny-tiny seedling trees from our woodland to the open grassland where we built the house. I believed our trees would grow better and be healthier if they had a root system that was equal to their top growth. We dug the tree seedlings as carefully as we could. In general, we moved oak trees, and a couple of native persimmons and one Mexican Plum and they had 8-12" of topgrowth and the rootball was 12-15" 'tall'. I don't think we started planting trees until 2001 after moving here in 1999 because 1999 and 2000 were severe drought years. We have a two-story house, and almost every one of those teeny-tiny trees are now as tall as the house, and most of them are taller than the house. I am positive we would not have had that kind of growth if we'd started with containerized trees that had a lot of topgrowth in comparison to the small root systems. Our tallest oak tree is a red oak that grew from an acorn 'planted' by a squirrel. I believe it popped up in the shrub bed on the south side of the house in 2002 or 2003. It is easily 4 or 5' taller than the seedling red oaks we transplanted from the woods around the same time or the year before. For anyone interested in propagating native plants, I highly recommend an almost-600 page book by Jill Nokes called "How To Grow Native Plants of Texas and the Southwest". It is an amazing book, and mine is old and dogeared and well-worn. Two books I found very helpful when I was trying to figure out what all the native plants on our land were back after we bought this land in 1997 are by Doyle McCoy and are: "Roadside Wild Fruits of Oklahoma" and "Roadside Trees and Shrubs of Oklahoma". I bought both of them at Barnes & Noble in the OKC area (might have been the one in Norman) in the late 1990s. They were published in 1981 and I don't know if they are still in print, but they have been invaluable in helping me identify all the native plants here. Our house is in a slightly more hospitable area than yours, but not by much, and I think it is only more hospitable because of its proximity to the Red River. Love County is a transitional county, sitting right in the middle of south Central OK and it varies greatly in rainfall with higher rainfall in the eastern portion of the county (ave. of 42" per year) and much less rain in the western portion of the county (ave. of 38" per year). We're right in the middle. I would imagine the western end of our county is very similar to the El Reno area, and it always amazes me how much drier the western portion of our county is. We were out in the western end of our county a couple of weeks ago and even though we were only 15 or 20 miles further west than our home, it was significantly drier and the native plants were 'short' compared to those same plants at our house. So, even though we and they can grow the same exact native trees, they are going to get a lot larger in our part of the county than at the western end of the county, and I think there is an important lesson there. However, they also have sandy soil in the area where we were, and we have red clay that holds water better so I'm sure that accounts for some of the differences in plant growth. It is much harder for young trees to survive/grow during extended periods of drought in fast-draining sand than in clay. I noticed, for example, that the further west you go, the shorter the oak trees. There's also a lot more native cacti out there than here and slight differences in the native grasses....theirs are undoubtedly the more drought-tolerant ones. I noticed they have large stands of sand lovegrass out there that get huge. We have scattered bits of lovegrass here at our place in clay but it doesn't grow as large in the dense clay and it doesn't compete well with taller prairie grasses here like it does further west. We all can learn a lot from native plants compared to more exotic imported ones. At first I tried to plant a lot of landscape plants like hostas and hydrangeas, and they really didn't grow well here in our soil and with our frequent summer droughts. That caused me to quickly convert to native plants, which only made sense. There aren't many non-natives I'll plant any more because they just don't tolerate recurring drought as well. With clay soil, it is even more difficult, though, because I have to select plants that can handle a drought year with 19" of rainfall and temps in the 100s for a long time but which also will tolerate a wet year with 50" of rain, and sometimes 6 to 9 to 12" of rain or more in one day. (Our record one-day rainfall is 12.89" and the soil stayed saturated for weeks.) It can be hard to find plants that tolerate both extremes. Natives, I have found, do tolerate them and that's why that's mostly what we plant on our property. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to look at our property during the drought years and realize that the native plants handle it a thousand times better than the non-native ones. Dawn

Jen, thanks for the links. I've got GNPS bookmarked, but unfortunately, just about everything they do is based in Atlanta and I'm about two hours away from Atlanta. I will try emailing them, though, and ask if they've considered expanding some of their plant sales and plant "rescues" state-wide. :) The landscaping for birds link was very helpful, thanks! Von, I'm in the suburbs. I've got a large yard, as suburbs go, but it's nothing that would support more than four or five large trees, and it's already got three large pine trees, and a pear tree and a peach tree that were here when I moved in. I'd really like to add some kind of large hardwood, but there's just not enough room for a canopy size tree. My next choice is the understory trees/large shrubs, so in that line, I've got a shrub dogwood, a chokecherry, a hackberry, a mulberry, two young pawpaws and I'm trying to find a good serviceberry to add. I want a species or cultivar of serviceberry that won't get more than about 20 feet high at most and that won't require much care as far as keeping it disease free. I might be able to add a small cherry tree, too, but that would be about the limit of trees I could fit in the yard. I already have two viburnums and three more on the way in the spring. I've tried to grow two elderberries and they both died; I don't know what the problem is, but I'm not going to try elderberries again, at least not for a few years. I'm adding a couple of blueberry bushes and some muscadine grape vines very soon, and I've got an eastern ninebark coming in next month. The only other shrubs I have are lantana (the birds keep planting more), turk's cap, beautyberry, a huge gardenia, Joe-pye weed, butterfly bush, some bush hibiscus, a Clerondendrum, and some roses that were here when I moved in. I don't particularly care for roses, but these have been mostly behaving themselves and providing the occasional rose hip for the birds, so I've left them alone. I'm planning to take the butterfly bush out this year (since I recently learned it's considered a minor invasive in GA) and replace it with some kind of native similar in wildlife benefit. I'm looking for ideas of what types of birds (and other animals) like what types of plants, so I can have a good variety in my yard. I do have a little more room for planting perennials and vines, since I can fit more of those in together, and I've got some seed producing perennials and nectar producing perennials and vines already. I'm planning to add more natives this year and get rid of some of the non-natives that were here when I moved in two years ago. When I moved in, the yard was practically useless to most wildlife, nothing but lawn, roses, boxwoods, and the pine trees and pear & peach trees; most of the species of animals that were here were invasive pests. There were only a few species of birds in the yard on a regular basis and about half of those were exotic pests. I've been slowly changing out the pest plants for natives, and hoping the animals will follow suit in time. It was quite a change from my previous house, which had over 40 species of birds, several species of reptiles & amphibians, dozens and dozens of insects & spiders, and about a dozen mammal species on a regular basis. That yard was even smaller than my current one, but it was a much more natural setting and it had been long established. I hope this yard will build up to that level over time.

In the East and South, dogs are now the chief predator of native deer. Whether animal weeds or plant weeds, invasive species are a number one cause of the extinction of native animal and plant species or biological diversity. "The extinction of biological diversity is a threat to civilization second only to global, thermonuclear war." THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. Why? Biological diversity or all native species, create, sustain, support and maintain Earth's ecosystems, are an ecosystem altogether with soil and water. Ecosystems are the physical body of Earth and all biological diversity is the living components of its ecosystem, much like the human body is one organism given life by all its living body parts. An ecosystem, functioning synergistically, altogether, is one, living organism/unit. Any agent that kills biological diversity, kills Earth's ecosystems, and any agent that kills ecosystems, kills Earth. Humankind is alive because of ecosystems and biological diversity. If it is a native animal or plant, it is a strand in the web of all life; a rivet in spaceship Earth; the bricks and mortar of man's house, Earth. Humans have life because of Earth's oxygen and fresh water factories, i.e., ecosystems. Past living species created Earth's atmosphere and maintain it today. Before the advent of plants/trees/ecosystems, there was no oxygen on Earth. What is the most deadly, Earth-killing invasive specie in history: The domestic cat. Most recorded extinctions occurred on Earth's islands, and the majority of these extinctions, 78% were caused when European explorers, fishermen and settlers introduced the domestic cat and European rat to these island ecosystems. The domestic cat caused over double the number of these extinctions. Only native plants and animals altogether with soil and water, are an ecosystem, the physical, living body of EArth and man's only home. There is a vast and deadly difference between native and introduced, unnatural, alien, transported plants and animals and biological diversity, man's life-support team and Earth's workforce. tessyt