Your flower bed will be fine. The arbor day ten pack trees are small. I find rabbits to be their biggest threat lol so I put a fence around mine.

The permanent spot for them, is it sunny, shady, wet or dry?

Sorry if I wasn't clear, this WILL be the permanent spot for one of them, if any are suitable. The soil is consistently moist but not soggy, with dappled shade and a few hours of sun.

I think the redbud's more of an understory tree and might appreciate the dappled light. I'm a fan of hawthorne but not all appreciate the thorns. I wouldn't want a crab in my flower bed. Dogwoods don't like it here so I can't comment on them.

Thanks treebarb.

Now I just need to find good homes for the other nine!

I think the dogwood has by far the best fall color of the ones you listed. They do well in this zone 6 (Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania) in clay soil and a range of sun exposures. In full sun they're quite dense with leaves, in the shade you get to see more of the branch structure. In both cases they turn a nice maroon red in the fall.

Alex

If you only have room for one my vote is for the doogwood. Cornus florida what they send? It should be maintainable near a home.

Redbuds grow quicker here but lack the excellent fall color.

Thorns make the HawTHORNE a better choice for a natural area ppl dont have to walk.

Crabs flower and sometime have decent fall color. The fall fruit is more noticable than dogwood. My personal opinion is they are less formal in appearance, better for middle of the yard and more sun. Also some look pretty ragged late in the year.

Thanks for listening to my opinions.

Hybiscus syriacus - Rose of Sharon - will perform well in those conditions.

Dax

In the spring of 2006, I received those 10 free trees from Ntl Arbor day + 2 Crape myrtles as a bonus (been a modest supporter for like 20 years). I planted them in a holding bed, with mixed results. A little more than half the trees have survived. There have been many people posting on these forums who get little or no survival on the Arbor day free trees.

The 2 redbuds and the Sargent Crabs are doing very well. One of the Redbuds even flowered one little clump this Spring! Unfortunately, the flowering Dogwoods died almost immediately. However, they are easy to start from seed - I collected some from a beautiful white flowering Dogwood last fall and winter-sowed them last December. Have 2 nice little trees!

I think either the Redbud or Dogwood, both understory trees, would do well in your location. They are both beautiful, but IMO flowering Dogwood has more ornamental value throughout the growing season, with pretty red berries and a deep red maroon color in the fall. The Redbud is probably more drought tolerant though.

This is one of the Arbor day trees that survivied. It has star shaped leaves and twisty bark. I am not sure what it is, and can't identify from the list that came with the trees.

Anybody know what this is??
{{gwi:480937}}

Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua

Thanks, lucky. Sweetgum was definitely not on the list! There might be some other mis-matches in there too. :) This is a very interesting-looking tree and only remember seeing them in one place around this area. It seems to be doing quite well, was slow to establish and had some die-back at first but is now about 5 feet tall and healthy. Isn't this the tree that makes really prickly balls or something?