Photos courtesy Chapel Valley Landscape Company
Considering adding trees to the landscape around your home? Whether for privacy, aesthetics, or additional scale, clients these days are opting for much larger specimen trees. As houses have grown from the 1950s ramblers to the larger, multifaceted homes of today, the trees that surround them have become a much more important factor in integrating the home with its surroundings. The process of procurement and installation of large trees can be challenging but well worth the effort when the final result is witnessed. Nothing enhances the exterior of a home like a well-positioned, healthy specimen tree of decent proportion.
When discussing the addition of trees with your landscape contractor or architect, size can drive all other decisions. Many people want a particular variety of tree or a certain color, but trees, unlike vehicles or house paint, are not available at all times in all colors. More often than not, the decision has to be broader—a shade tree with nice fall color that will be at least 20′ tall or an evergreen screening to cover from here to there and be tall enough to block out the neighbor’s view. Once these general criteria are developed, your contractor can begin a national search for the right trees to fill the niche.
What constitutes a large specimen?
The word “large” is a relative term. For some clients, a large tree might be any tree that they can’t put in their car trunk at the local nursery and plant with a wheelbarrow and shovel. For others, a large tree might be one that requires the use of a machine for transport and installation. Here, we’ll classify large trees as any shade tree (measured by trunk caliper or diameter) with a trunk larger than 5” in diameter and any evergreen (measured by height) that is at least 18’ tall. Trees of this size require tractor trailers or tree spades to haul them to the site and large forklifts or cranes to get them to the hole. The ball sizes for trees like these are measured in tons not pounds, and it takes a professional and experienced landscape contractor to handle them properly.
How do I put a large specimen in my landscape?
Now that we’ve classified “large tree,” let’s talk about selection. Large specimens very often are not available locally. Sometimes, you’ll get lucky and find a local source, but usually, your architect or contractor will contact growers across the nation to find the right tree for your installation. Once the tree is located and under contract, the contractor visits the nursery on a tagging trip to hand select the actual specimen. Trees of this size remain in the ground and are only dug on a contract basis. Very rarely is a large specimen tree removed from the ground on speculation.
Timing is a crucial element in this transaction. Large trees aren’t normally available at the corner nursery for a reason—they’re too valuable to risk. Trees have digging seasons, and those digging seasons are specific to each variety of tree. You can’t go by the adage that fall is the best planting time when talking about large trees. A great number of trees are considered “fall hazard” and may not survive if dug during the autumn months. In this regard, a grower is your best friend and will guide you and your contractor through the seasonality of each tree, recommending the best time for digging.
Once past all of the decision making and timing issues, the landscape contractor must figure out how to get these beasts to the hole. Now a new crop of obstacles is presented. Shipping is usually the first hurdle. Take the tree pictured with this article. This Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), which was found in Long Island, New York, needed to be shipped to Middleburg, Virginia. The head was over 40′ high and the ball size was 14′ in diameter. Brian Hoffman of Chapel Valley Landscape remembers “measuring every bridge in New York that this tree would travel under to make sure it had clearance . . . police escorted the load across the bridges because it wouldn’t fit through the toll plazas.” This wasn’t the typical case—the usual dilemma is that only one tree will fit on a truck and the project may call for five, or the nursery can’t get all of the trees on the one particular day when the crane is on site. As a homeowner, you shouldn’t see these behind the scenes issues, but they certainly do exist.
Once the truck has arrived and the tree is on site, the challenge becomes getting a product weighing in at 35,000 pounds upright and to the hole without major damage to the tree and the surrounding property. This is where your contractor’s experience comes into play. In the Dawn Redwood example, Hoffman used a 10,000-pound forklift to upright the ball while simultaneously lifting the head with a 100-ton crane. When the tree was upright, a custom rigging of chains and straps lifted it onto another tractor trailer that transported it to the hole—the crane set up again and lifted the tree to its final destination. “The coordination between the crane crew and our guys on the ground ensures we limit any damage to the tree to an absolute minimum,” says Hoffman.
Although the process of procurement and installation seems like an exhausting routine, don’t allow it to shy you away from looking into large specimen trees for your project. The client in this case was involved in a very small fraction of the effort. Working with an experienced contractor, your project should be seamless and cause little anxiety. The installation of large specimen trees can be more exciting than any addition to the landscape and perhaps even the home. In an instant, the landscape is forever changed by adding one of these magnificent plants. Even better is watching the tree develop over the years and the fact that it immediately looks as if it were always there.
How Much?
A discussion on trees such as these wouldn’t be complete without some idea of what one might cost the owner. It is nearly impossible to give a cost with the multitude of sizes and varieties, but plan on spending $5,000 up to $50,000 per tree for an extremely unique, large specimen. There are many trees that would fall short of this and just as many that could exceed these figures.
No matter what your reason for adding large trees, the benefits are always worth the effort. Large trees will shape a property like no other element in the landscape and will add countless value in the form of shade, screening, scale, and color all in one large package.
Greg Powell is the Residential Sales Manager and Marketing Director for the Virginia branch of Chapel Valley Landscape Company. For more information on Chapel Valley, log on to chapelvalley.com or phone 703-406-0802 for the Dulles, Virginia location or 301-924-5400 for the Woodbine, Maryland location. Powell is also a member of the ChesapeakeHome Editorial Advisory Board.
