For the names of the maples you'd have to ask the nursery owner. But he may not know; so what you can also do is look at the growth habit of the tree and try to project out 20 years... and maples also lend themselves to pruning. If you want a high canopy, then all the branches you are looking at today will eventually be pruned off and a similar shape will be over your head. That is why to me the second maple/third picture looks more like what your property needs. But you could accommodate them both, or all three, if you manage them (once the other Bradford is gone, and honestly, it will likely be a lot cheaper to get rid of both at once - on the other hand, letting a new tree grow in for a few years first means you won't have to go through a moonscape phase). It actually looks like you might have a little new tree by the fence? Maples aren't always appreciative of being gardened under so if you want a flower bed I would be more inclined to remove your foundation hedge and corner pyramid evergreen, and make a nice garden there - those plantings weren't genius choices to start with and are getting past their best-before date. Removing that corner evergreen especially would open up your front door area nicely. Tree removal is always a good opportunity to rethink the whole property landscaping. If you do a plan view diagram and draw circles on it to represent the future canopies of your trees you may find it easier to think of options and placements. Consider sun direction and where you want shade. True you don't have a lot of room but there is scope for much better use of what you have. KarinL

They will get their sugar up even unthinned but thinning will difinately greatly increase size (they're small enough anyway) and somewhat improve flavor. Maybe just becuase there is a lower ratio of skin in larger fruit but I think it cranks up the brix a bit also.

Scott makes several good points. Fireblight resistance is a major consideration in HotLanta. Unless you're planning to make perry, or you like eating green, unripe persimmons, you do not want perry pears - they are, for all intents and purposes, inedible - or at least, not very tasty, often with lots of astringency. Magness and Warren are top-quality pears, but both are pollen-sterile, and neither are very attractive to bees, as they produce little or no nectar. Anecdotal reports - and I'm beginning to believe them - are that they are best grown as a limb grafted into other variety trees here and there, rather than as a stand-alone tree - at least you'll get some bees visiting the Magness/Warren blossoms while they're working the other variety - as a stand-alone tree, there's not much to attract a bee to visit. Some pear enthusiasts are also claiming that unless you put Warren/Magness on a dwarfing rootstock, like quince(the fireblight susceptibility there scares me mightily), you'll wait 15 years or more for them to bear - and they may never fruit heavily. While I like Keiffer, I know that many folks don't, but it can take FB hits, shrug 'em off and keep on growing and bearing. Douglas is reputed to be better than Keiffer, while retaining similar FB-resistance. Pineapple is another one I like, and a friend in Cookeville TN is raving about the Pineapple pear crop this year - heavenly! Dabney is supposed to be another good FB-resistant hybrid selection that I didn't see on the list Scott linked.

John H. Gordon grew - and offered seedlings - of the 'Covel' manchurian walnut - or a hybrid of it - from his nursery in Amherst NY, where he specialized in nut trees for northern growers. (JHG passed away several years ago...don't think the nursery is still in operation, but parts of his website are still up - linked below) 2007 was a disaster - and a good illustration of how important it is WHEN it gets cold, as compared to HOW cold it gets. Butternut is noted for its cold-hardiness...but we'd had an exceptionally warm Feb/March - with several days in March with temps into the mid-80s. Things had broken dormancy far too early - I had pecans/walnuts/persimmons with 8-10 inches of tender new growth...then, 4 consecutive nights of temps into the teens, at Easter. Killed a lot of things outright, some just back to the root collar. Big mature oaks/hickories in the forest here were killed back to their main trunks - branches larger around than my thigh...dead. Some of those trees are still dying off after that insult and the ensuing drought that followed; it's just taken a while... Here is a link that might be useful: John H. 'Nuttree' Gordon