Using native tree species

Consider planting native species when designing or changing your landscape. Native species are adapted to conditions in Ohio and provide important habitat and food resources for wildlife. Everything you are looking for in a woody plant can be found in native species — tall, medium and short, flowers, colorful leaves, soil preferences, wet and drought tolerance, etc. Non-native species may grow well here since most are from temperate climates in Europe or Asia, but since they lack their natural controls they may become invasive and take over habitat from natives. Ohio has wonderful tree, shrub and flower native species. Search online for "Ohio native trees" for sources, or ask a friend with a woodlot if you can transplant something you want. Nurseries and catalogues are more likely to have horticultural varieties which may have been modified to lose or gain features not found in the native species. You can grow trees and shrubs from seed, I've successfully grown horse apple/osage orange, sycamore and catalpa (which grew two feet in one year). You can check your property for trees and shrubs planted by nature (or helped by squirrels), then move them to where you want them. My yard is always sprouting maples, oaks, elm, mulberry and ash. Vegetation maps of Ohio indicate our soils support a climax community of beech and maple forest. This means that besides maples and beech overhead in the canopy, there are also beech and maple seedlings and saplings in the shaded understory. If you walk in a forest you know there are also oaks and a lot of other species depending on local conditions. If you have a wet area, some tolerant species are sycamore, cottonwood and willow. I've seen a whole grove of buckeye in a lowland. Just for fun I checked out oak species of the eastern U.S. (field guide to native oak species of the eastern North America published by the USDA) focusing on Ohio. There were at least nine that grow around here (white, swamp white, shingle, bur, chinquapin, dwarf chinquapin, pin, red and black) and a few more species in southern Ohio. All oaks produce acorns though their leaves and vary tremendously from highly lobed to not lobed at all. You can choose from species that will grow huge to dwarf chinquapin. Some self-prune their lower dead branches, some do not. If you have oak or beech on your property you know they have the characteristic of holding onto their leaves through the winter. Oak and beech are in the same plant family and it's interesting in the winter to drive by a forest and see all the beech still holding their leaves. My neighbor is not thrilled to keep raking under her beech until snow, then again in the spring. Native trees I planted include white oak, sugar and silver maples, black walnut, shagbark hickory, tulip tree, basswood, ash and sweet gum. It is true that walnuts are not friendly towards other trees so they should be planted with lots of space around each. Tulip tree and basswood both produce lovely flowers, the basswoods are fragrant and used medicinally. Wow, there's so much to say! Next column will be native shrubs. Even though I am making an effort to plant native tree species, always, it's your yard and you should plant what you like. The only conifer that I see as a seedling is juniper, all the pines, spruce, arborvitae and yews that you see are not native to this area. There are no baby pine trees under the pine, conditions are not favorable. There are conifers in my yard, though, they are important escape places for songbirds in the winter from hawks. Think about native plant additions to your yard, enjoy!