The first tree is Geijera parviflora, AUSTRALIAN WILLOW. The second is, indeed, a Jacaranda. Joe

The last house that I lived in had a lovely little fruit tree orchard in the backyard when I moved in, planted by the previous owner of the house about 15 years earlier. All of the trees were pretty good for climbing but one in particular was a beautiful Yellow Delicious Apple tree that was about 15 feet high. It had thick lateral branches that spread out nearly horizontally in a beautiful, balanced way. PERFECT for climbing, especially younger children, and several children who visited enjoyed climbing it. Then, a few years later, a freak storm came through and blew over the largest tree in the yard - a 50-year old Silver Maple that was at least 75 feet tall growing near the edge of a swamp. When it landed the crown of the tree SMASHED the fruit orchard to smithereens, including the Yellow Delicious apple tree that was the most perfect climbing tree I could imagine for children. :( Fortunately, a nice apple tree and a large Black cherry were far enough away to be spared, and they were pretty good climbing trees too. :)

Sandy, It may be too late this year, but in late winter/early spring you can buy tiny trees for 'conservation' purposes (including windbreaks and for wildlife) from the Forestry Department. Those tiny trees do really well and grow pretty fast because their root system is the same size (or larger than) their top growth, so they aren't struggling the first few years to get established since they do not have more top growth than roots. It may seem like they aren't growing much the first few years but that is because they are developing a great root system, and then the top growth follows. As an example, we planted tiny oak saplings dug from our own woodland. When we dug them, we moved 12-15" of roots and the growth above ground ranged from about 9-12" in height. The first three years they barely grew (at least above ground), but most of them now are about 11 or 12 years old and they are taller than our two-story house. They have been very resilient in some tough drought years here. As far as I can remember, the OFS trees come in bundles or in flats. I'll link their website, which also has a lot of other great info on recommended trees for OK, many of which are native. Don't forget to plant understory trees and shrubs too. A lot of the plants in our 10 acres of woodland that the animals rely upon for food actually are the understory plants that grow underneath the deciduous shade trees. Our understory has dozens of kinds of plants. A few that come to mind are American beautyberry, Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum, Mexican plum, wild cherry, redbud, and then the smaller plants that are more like ground covers like inland sea oats, coralberry (Symphoricarpos obiculatus). In a more low-lying area where we once had a swamp (until drought dried up the spring that kept it swampy) we have buttonbush, and on some of the eastern edges of the woodland we have a lot of native sumacs (wildlife love them), some creeping wild blackberries that we called dewberries in Texas, and the ever-present Eastern Red Juniper commonly referred to as cedars. Due to the invasiveness of the cedars, we remove many of them but do leave a few for the wildlife because they shelter in their dense branches in cold winter weather and also eat the berries. Most of the larger native trees here in southcentral OK include post oaks, red oaks, burr oaks, blackjack oaks, hackberries, Kentucky coffee tree, some kind of ash trees, hickories and native pecans. All of them offer something that the various wild critters need. We have lots of kinds of vines in the woodland, all of which produce berries the wild things eat. These include some we'd rather not have, but we prune them back from pathways and leave them in the rest of the woodland for the wild animals, birds, butterflies, etc. They include Virginia creeper, native grapes, greenbrier, porcelain vine or something that looks like porcelain vine...I've never decided if that is what it is, Carolina snailseed (likely not native, but it is here now) and poison ivy. I am not sure how 'wild' you want your wooded area of trees to look, but if you plant trees, you likely will eventually end up with all the understory plants anyway because the birds will bring in seeds and deposit them while sitting in your trees or on your fenceline. Knowing how much you garden for the butterflies, I imagine you are thrilled to have such a nice piece of property where you'll have room to grow many plants for all the wild things. I look forward to listening along as you plant and enjoy the new place. On the Oklahoma Forestry Service website linked below, the trees they sell are listed in the State Nursery section and then in some of the other sections there's lots of info on trees that grow well here. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Forestry Service Website

Tilia, linden. If it's native it would be Tilia americana.