Mrs. Front Range Gardener thinks that Scrub Oak are unattractive all Winter, and are a fire hazard in the Summer. Note that there are none in our landscape!
According to entomologyst Doug Tallamy, the gambel oak is a top host of caterpillars. which are the exclusive diet of most bird babies: no caterpillars=no birds!
Thanks for the video. I live in Falcon, and the utility of some of these trees is more important than appearance. I planted Gambal Oak and Rocky Mountain Junipers as drought tolertant wind blocks. My backyard neighbor's aspen is dying from a black fungus, but it already sent several 6' shoots in my yard before I realized what they were.
I love gambel oaks! They offer so many wonderful benefits to our native wildlife. I don't plan one planting one bc of the way they form thickets but if a bluejay or squirrel were to 'plant' one in my yard I don't think I could bear to get rid of it 😄
I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas with one of the biggest cottonwoods on the block in our front yard. It was hit by lightning when I was a kid. Surprisingly, it didn’t kill the tree. As a kid, I loved all the leaves and cotton that floated in the air. As an adult messy trees have me thinking otherwise.😅
I have a scrub oak in my south facing front yard. It's been there for about 10 years and it's about 20 feet tall and bushy. It sits on a section where the driveway meets the sidewalk and is always hot in the summer. Mulch around it and never has had a lot of off shoots. Dark green leaves all summer. Resilient to heat and early and late snow. Great tree/bush. In wilder areas I've seen them grow in thickets that are attractive from a distance but a mess to deal with. I've found the fall color to be hit or miss depending on the weather. I like the Junipers look as well, but I've seen a lot of split trunks and broken branches from snow. Then they grow in all sorts of directions.
With this summer’s cold wet weather (at least in my yard!) those Douglas Fir have finally found their home. Here’s hoping it turns unfavorable for them again next year!
The oaks on my property provide food for the squirrels and turkeys. Doe hide their fawns in the thickets. They provide a great privacy screen. I love the oaks. Otherwise than that, I completely agree with your list.
As a former landscaper I agree with you. It always depends on the placement. All trees are good, when planted in the right environment. A Catalpa planted in the middle of a half acre opening is a wonderful thing. Planted within 50 feet of a structure, nope.
😂😂😂”Let us know in the comments below if you think Mrs. Front Range Gardener should make her OWN list.” You have a follower for life. Thanks for making me laugh while confirming we need to pull up our Aspens.
Next door neighbor planted aspens along their back yard fence - all the way! and some in their front yard. Hoo boy in 10 years... learned that at my old digs years ago.
I had a fire go through my property and the Rocky Mountain junipers were badly burned but mostly survived UNLIKE the other 700 trees I had planted from the forest service seedling program.
I like how you think! My top 5 from worst-worst to just worst: 1 Gamble Oak, 2 Gamble Oak, 3 Gamble Oak, 4 Cotton Wood, 5 Rocky Mountain Juniper :) I also can't stand how invasive the Gamble Oaks are. Good luck trying to remove one - or the whole thicket!!!
The objective of landscape gardening is to make your property look good. This is in contrast to gardening to grow food. You can landscape garden on any size lot. My lot is about a quarter acre.
Aspens are water hogs. I hate seeing them in dry area landscapes, like Santa Fe. You need to do a video on nice oaks people can grow in warmer areas. Oaks are equipped for a drying and warming climate.
That looks to be a cultivar of our native aspens. I would expect it to have the same problems. Although non-native, birch is a better behaved plant. Thanks for watching.
Never seen any videos before, the whole time I watched this I'm saying to my self if Aspen is not the number 1 this guy is dumb... He is definitely not...
The majority of the video is good...with one glaring exception that I can, personally, attest to: The MALE cottonwood trees are the ones that send out that awful cottony mess! The FEMALE cottonwood trees create these long, very sticky, flowers that are sorta like very soft & stringy pinecones. In fact: the reason why so many people have been experiencing worsening allergies is because there was a campaign to plant a majority of male trees, of all types, for this very reason! FEMALE trees, generally, have some sort of sticky sap or flowers designed to catch the wind blown pollen from male trees. This sticky "mess" was considered undesirable and the male trees were planted as an alternative...because they were considerably "cleaner". (Source: proudly owned a female cottonwood for over a decade, until it contracted that cottonwood disease that has killed off so very many of them in the front range.)
I live on 5 acres in castle rock and would say 75% of the property is shrub oak and I love it. Provides shade to the hiking paths I have built and shelter for many animals.
