Sustainability - Planting Trees

I am thinking about spring even though it is still a bit too cold to be out planting things just yet. Today I thought about trees rather than the chaos garden or the deck garden. Trees are a lot bigger and long lived too. Trees make a home more sustainable by

• Providing shade in the summer (cooling) and bright sunlight in the winter (warming)
• Soaking up rain - slowing down the runoff into nearby stream or gutters
• Providing nesting places for birds and squirrels…food for pollinators and their larvae…and sometimes food for humans too

The oak tree to the east of our house has grown tremendously in the 20 years we’ve lived here and now shades the front of the house almost completely in the summer. In the winter, the leaves are gone and we get the sun warming the front rooms during winter. We like it - and our cats seem to migrate to the patches of sunlight on winter mornings.

On the southwest side of the house a sycamore has gotten tall enough to shade the dining room and one side of master bedroom in the summer ---- and let the sunlight reach the house through its bare branches in the winter. Ideal placement!

So - in keeping with thinking about gardens and plantings - do I want another tree in the yard? I am concerned that the deer population in our area is so overwhelming that they are eating everything. How would a young tree survive? I’ve convinced myself that we’ll not add any trees in the near term. I’m grateful that the lowest branches of the trees we have are out of deer reach!  I would like to plant some fruit trees....and beging the process of dramatically reducing the grassy part of the lawn...but that is for some future year.