How tall and wide would you like? Evergreen or deciduous? Al

Deciduous is fine because warmth in winter is desirable, but a good evergreen would be nice too. The house is about 2 1/2 stories above the tree site, so we'd like the roof to get some shade to assist in keeping the house cooler in hot summer months. Any suggestions will be welcomed!

Thanks!

Have a look here at the Cal Poly Tree Selector. It can help narrow down your choices, then ask again here for performance in your Sunset zone.

My local nurseryman says this of

Acer freemanii AUTUMN FANTASY MAPLE

"Here's one of my favorite trees. This is a hybrid between the Red Maple (which won't succeed locally) and the Silver Maple (which performs well but has yellow fall color). This medium to large tree grows quickly with large, lobed leaves that are green above and silvery below during the growing season. The reliable fall foliage color is magenta and rose. This sterile hybrid makes no flowers or seed pods. The roots are relatively benign and don't send up suckers. This tree is not without faults. It's long slender branches are subject to breakage from ice storms in colder climates. Locally, it's nearly perfect.

Situate in sun. Provide decent soil and average moisture."

He's in Sunset 20 not 19, but the two zones are pretty close in condition.

Part (not all, but part) of avoiding root problems is watering properly so you don't end up with surface roots. If the soil is moistened only 1" down, even well-behaved trees must get into that 1" to get water, and they will do it!

Here is a link that might be useful: Cal Poly SLO Selectree

This post was edited by hoovb on Sat, Feb 23, 13 at 18:35

Wow! Fantastic link! Thanks so much! I'll be using that link for many other places in our 1.4 acre rocky hillside property!

Zone 20 is a lot more mild in the summer than 19. I don't think I would ever recommend a maple for 19. Even the one recommended maxes out at zone 17 which is purely coastal. It would take a ton of water in 19 and look pretty crispy in aug.

I would not either Nil, except for the experience of the nurseryman, who is 3rd generation plantsman and also has masters in horticulture from Cal Poly.

Suzi, I'm resurrecting this old thread to see what you chose and how it worked out! I'm in zone 10/sunset 24 and researching a similar dilemma.

catchick, DH wanted to keep the messy old shade tree throughout the summer. The plan is to replace it this fall. I will definitely come back and update you on what we chose and the expenses of getting the old tree out and planting the new one. We will probably use Moon Valley Nurseries since they plant for free. Please update this thread with your findings. Interested in what you decided to do too!

UPDATE: We had the old messy tree removed a week ago for $850.00. We kept a few logs to use on our hillside for steps in a couple places. Basically small terraces held in by rebar.

We bought two large shade trees from Moon Valley Nursery that have non invasive root systems, non-toxic leaves, and are guaranteed to not be messy! One is a Raywood Ash. It turns red in autumn. The other is a MALE ginkgo biloba. It turns yellow in autumn. They both are drought friendly, grow fast and were in 36 gallon crates. We also bought a queen palm to replace one that blew over and a much desired Cape Blue Plumbago shrub. Editing to state that 2 trees in 36 gallon crates, 1 palm in a 20 gallon crate, 1 shrub in a 5 gallon, including delivery and free planting cost us $2,300.00. The shade trees are already about 18' tall, and expected to grow 3-5 feet per year.

We got to choose the trees we wanted. They tagged them for delivery. They plant them all for free on Oct 30th. We are hoping the looming El Nino will give them a good start this season.

well as long as you don't consider trees that drop their leaves, 'messy'. Those 'crates' are called 36 inch boxes. Nursery boxes are measured by width not volume. Also, that ginko is going to be pretty slow growing.

UPDATE! We love our trees and they are both doing exactly what we wanted them to do. Non messy shade! We are considering moving a Fig tree that never grew very well with a MALE ginkgo biloba because of the beautiful shade it provides.