What do you want out of a tree? Flowers, fruit, fall color, shade, privacy screen, wildlife value? What threats will these trees have to face? Road salt, proximity to a street, compacted soil, wind?

Allegheny Serviceberry was recommended by the state of Rhode Island. I like Hawthorn.

I would like flowers OR interesting leaf color, fall color, and attractive shape for curb appeal. A large nearby tree was just cut down, so there will be roots in the soil, but nothing competing for water. It will get mostly full sun with a little dappled shade from a more distant tree. It is set significantly back from the street so there will be no road salt. No compacted soil, no significant wind.

thanks!

Ed, I really like hawthorn too, but they seem hard to find! We lost ours in a bad snowstorm last year. Snapped off about 8' up. Sad. Lalala, hawthorn are so great because they bloom with little white flowers in spring that the insects go crazy for, then orange berries appear that all sorts of critters devour, followed by excellent fall foliage. It really is a nice tree.

I do love my stewartia for its shape and fall foliage. The flowers are nice, but they don't bloom all at once over a period of time, but rather about a dozen per day. So while each individual bloom is so beautiful, I don't see the spectacular WOW it would be if they all bloomed over a couple weeks all at once. I think Marie experiences the same with hers.

I've really been enjoying my kousa 'Samaritan' which is variegated and gets the red fruit which stands out against the foliage, and the fall turn is quite nice.

Odd. They don't seem super difficult to find here. Arbor Day sold them in their "10 free tree" pack one year...and the trees they give out usually aren't rare ones. My county soil conservation sale also sells hawthorn.

You've got a nice list of plants.

Hawthorne - nice bark, flowers and berries. Be sure to get a disease resistant variety as they are prone to quite a range including various rusts and fire blight. I haven't noticed fall color in the ones at UNH.

Stewartia - Stunning fall color, pleasing shape, attractive but sparse flowers, ornamental bark, though it would need limbing up to show this.

Kousa dogwood - Mine has gorgeous deep red, late fall color which I like but is a problem in years we have early snow. Flowers are long-lasting and fruit is both ornamental and enjoyed by wildlife. There are a range of selections for size, shape, leaf varigations, etc. as well as some hybrids like Venus, one of the "Rutgers hybrids" which are Kousa x nuttalli or Kousa x florida. Most nurseries will only have a few varieties of Kousa or its hybrids IME, however.

My Magnolia x loebneri 'Leonard Messel' is pink and has never been effected by late frost despite our living in a river valley and prone to late frosts. There is also a white, M. x leobneri 'Merrill'. I think if you choose a variety with either frost resistance or late blooms, a magnolia could be fine. Winter buds and smooth pale bark are pleasing to my eye, especially against an evergreen backdrop. Some of the yellows such as Golden Gift bloom around the time the leaves emerge and so are late enough to miss frosts.

Serviceberry does fine here, both planted and growing wild. It tends to be an understory tree here, so I don't know how it would do in your zone in full sun, though it is OK in mostly sun in several places I know of here. The early flowers are a favorite of mine and they often, though not always, have nice fall color. The fruit is popular with birds, but they don't seem to fruit all that densely IME. Someone on this forum had disease issues, but I haven't seen any here, either in my own garden or in extensive plantings at UNH and other commercial plantings. Depending on the variety, serviceberry (Amelanchier) can be a multi-stemmed shrub that won't get much larger than 10'-15' or a smallish several-stemmed tree.

I like both Japanese maples and River birches (particularly Heritage, but the wild ones are also lovely.) The birch has gorgeous bark, graceful shape, clear yellow fall color. The maples have ornamental branch structure, nice leaves and most have beautiful autumn foliage color.

I don't have winter moths here, so I can't speak to the damage they do to any of the species in this list.

Thanks so much, everyone. Babs, what do you mean by the kousa leaves being a problem with early snow--just that they stay on too long and you can't rake them up?

I thought I had a photo of it, but can't find it of a 12' Kousa tree with leaves still on it in late October, bent down to about 4' due to having the leaves catch extra snow. My leaves are gone by mid-November, so if you don't ever get snow before then, you should be good to go with a Kousa. I also find, that if I remove the snow promptly, the tree doesn't lose any branches, unlike something like an ornamental pear which simply blows apart with the snow's weight.

NHBabs, what varieties of Hawthorne are disease resistant? The only varieties readily available near me are Washington Hawthorn and Downy Hawthorn.

edlincoln, I personally don't grow any Hawthornes, but perhaps T2D can tell you what hers was. I think the ones at UNH are Winter Kings (if I am remembering correctly) and they look healthy and are on the lists I have seen of less disease-prone types of hawthornes. Also on the lists was downy hawthorne (Crataegus mollis) and a couple of varieties C. crus-gallii, but I don't have any experience except seeing T2D's tree and the ones at work.