They should've given you more than 2 trees to choose from. In zone 5b you could choose a maple, an oak and several other trees. Do you have any idea what you want there? I could send you a handful of acorns for free for you to sow on your soil where you want a tree. It would be a Quercus Velutina. It would sprout in spring. But, you may want to pick your own tree. Don't wait too long to decide though, I will keep the acorns in my fridge until spring. But, I encourage you to pick the tree that you want.

Thanks poaky1, I appreciate the offer, but I'm looking for something more upright and narrow, about 20' tall, and maybe 10' wide. I had looked into 'Autumn Brilliance' Serviceberry, but was told it would be too big. Maybe I'll go back tomorrow, and get a 2nd opinion. :)

Okay, but I don't think you'll be getting much shade from the trees they are giving you to choose from. If you change your mind, I'll keep the acorns in my fridge until April of 2017.

Neither. These are ornamental fruit (roseacea) trees, which are short lived, disease prone, eyesores. I think you should plant something like acer saccharum or rubrum.

http://www.firsteditionsplants.com/gladiator-crabapple Here is a link to the crabapple.

Here is a link to the cherry https://hartley-botanic.com/magazine/five-great-trees-these-choice-arboreal-show-stoppers-wont-outgrow-their-welcome/ This one also has some others to consider.

Be sure to look at the mature width of the tree. If it is going to spill over into your neighbor's yard, be sure they would like it to be there.

Do you have more than one nursery? If you do you might check another and see if their suggestions are the same. I like the cherry the best of the two.

Toronado, Thank you. That is exactly why I suggested going to some more nurseries in her area. Of the two choices given, I like the cherry simply because I am partial to cherry trees and I am not a fan of trees that stay red leafed, but both are pretty trees and must be suited to the climate since they were at a local nursery.

Prairiegal, Do you have room for both? Maybe, the two cherries in the back with the crabapple centered slightly in front.

Both seem like reasonable selections for your area. I would probably visit a few other nurseries to see their ideas as well as Sherri suggested. There may be other choices that you aren't considering.

Gladiator crab is reputed to have improved disease resistance, especially to scab, over other purple-leafed crabapples and is really hardy (z2). It is a fairly new cultivar and there doesn't seem to be a lot of testing available out on the web. Do you like the look of the purple leaves? It was selected by a nursery in Manitoba, so I would think would be well adapted your drier western climate.

Pink Flair has been tested for a number of years in North Dakota (z3), and flowers later than most cherries, and so will most likely avoid flower kill by late spring frosts. It also has good disease resistance and nice fall color as well as good-looking bark.

Be aware that you will most probably be removing suckers from the aspen for quite a while, either by clipping them off as soon as they appear to use up their reserves or by carefully wiping them with an herbicide. Keep on top of it or they will have the opportunity to build strength and will take longer to get rid of. I have had sprouts for several years and as far away as 30 feet or more.

Edited to add: I know CO is a large state, but if you are anywhere near Denver, the Denver Botanical garden may well give you some good ideas as well.

ornamental flowering cherry does not bloom consistently in my z5 MI ... it is winter kill of dormant buds.. or heavy spring freezes/frosts .... and i though much of CO is z5 .... plus altitude ...

but when they do bloom.. zow weeee ... lol ...

if you are planting 3 ... diversify.. 2 crabs .. 1 cherry.. for those zoweee years

you either want a site block for the house behind .. or you want shade ... i dont think you will accomplish both.. planting back towards the fence

ken

Prairiegal never said she wanted shade trees. She clearly wants small, ornamental, flowering trees! Poaky, you're so sweet to offer acorns but.........;-)

I know nothing about your climate, prairie, so I won't make a suggestion other than knowing that there are some very hardy and beautiful crabs. I agree that second and third opinions will be helpful. Avoid the big box stores for advice.

Another potentially valuable resource might be your local extension office or website. HERE'S some help finding them.

Good luck in your search and I'd be interested in knowing what you eventually choose.

Oh yes, I always like when the OP shows the final reveal (yard-kitchens-baths-ect) and the reason for choosing.

Rhizo, Thanks for mentioning about advice from big box stores. They are fine if you know what you are looking for, but they are bad about just getting in what was cheap for them and not suitable for the area. For example, several years ago, one of the Walmarts in my area got in "Pride of Mobile" azaleas. They are beautiful azaleas, but are not hardy in North Alabama! Hey, to whomever was ordering them it was all Alabama......... I'm sure they do the same in Colorado.

Thanks everyone! The tree will definitely not be for shade, mainly ornamental that will be big enough to use as a screen - for the most part. When I check the CSU Extension, there is no information at all about the 2 trees suggested, which makes me skeptical that either would be a good choice. We get periods of drought and have clay soil. I haven't seen a mature Gladiator so it's hard to get the full picture of what it would look like. The Pink Flair Cherry does (IMO) have nicer summer and fall leaves and nice bark, but it may get too big, especially if I want to do more than 1 tree to fill the space.

NHBabs, interesting about the Aspen suckers- it's such a wild root system. I have a few Aspens in the front yard and the shooters pop up everywhere; I will be looking for them more now that the backyard Aspen is down. I am about an hour from the Denver Botanic Garden, and I absolutely love that place, but probably too far for me to get there anytime soon.

I'll check a couple more nurseries and get advice about narrow shaped trees.

If the Denver Botanic Garden has a web site, that might be a good place for info. Good Luck! I am going to research the cherry for here. I have been wanting something for my patio. It seems like it will cover a lot of zones. One of the developers planted the cherry tree that is in Washington DC down one of our four lanes and they are breathtaking in the spring. They are too big for my yard, but the smaller one might work. I have also been looking at the weeping cherry.

I am looking forward to pictures of the reveal!

I wouldn't count on either remaining only 10 ft. wide - 10 ft. wide for a tree is nothing (see the widths given for the trees in the C.S.U. tables I linked to earlier). If you are that restricted maybe you should be looking at shrubs. Also the planting site looks like it might be a little damp, the presence of the aspen would tend to reinforce this. So it might be damper than the cherry would like; in addition when purchasing flowering cherries you have to watch that the stock offered is not grafted on sweet cherry (Prunus avium) or you are likely to end up with suckering, heavy surface roots and delayed graft incompatibility.

As I mentioned earlier deciduous trees are only going to provide much screening when in leaf, and the aspen wasn't even doing that when it was in leaf. But maybe you are only concerned about privacy enhancement during summer, when sitting etc. out in the yard. If instead you don't want to be able to see the neighbor's house whenever you look that way then you need to be planting evergreen trees or shrubs.

Also a row or grouping of evergreen trees on the north side of the property - whichever one that is - is a good idea in cold climates because it blocks Arctic winds. This is actually recommended for sheltering the house and reducing heat loss, in addition to making adjacent outdoor spaces more pleasant to be in whenever there is a sharp wind blowing out of the North - be it winter, spring or fall.

Nope, I wouldn't want a shrub, they wouldn't be tall enough. Tree first, then shrubs under the tree.

Agree with Embo that suckering could be an issue on the cherry. The Pink Flair cherries I've observed for sale at local nurseries appear to be on avium root stock, and often suckers have already appeared on them. Not sure if any growers are producing them own root.

There are shrubs that grow 15 ft.+ tall.

There's really only one nursery in the area, which is a big place, but I'm still limited by the supply. I'm leaning towards planting 3 gladiator crabapples next to each other in a staggered way. The narrow/upright size is the better option for the location, and I will look into planting bright green or bright pink flowers/shrubs if I need some more interest in that area (to go against the purplish leaves). The whole back side of the yard does have varying color throughout the spring and summer, so they yard, as a whole, does have interest.

Thanks for all the help!

This place always has a large selection, ships.

https://www.forestfarm.com/products.php?category=19

The original Gladiotor ('Durleo') measured 26 ft. by 10 ft. at 17 years from seed.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=PP20167.PN.&OS=PN/PP20167&RS=PN/PP20167

Thank you for finding such an informative webpage (uspto); I thought I had seen them all. :)

Whenever you see plant naming with a plant patent number attached it means you can Quick Search the U.S.P.T.O. site using the patent number and have a full patent description pop up.

Unless the patent is beyond a certain age, in which case it will have a reduced presence on the site.

Crabapple tend to be a bit less disease prone then cherry.

I'd post in theRocky Mountain Gardening Forum for people familiar with your area.

If your local nursery doesn't have a great selection, you can mail order all sorts of bare root plants online...if you are willing to start slow.

The hundreds of different kinds of crab-apples are all over the place in disease resistance, as are the related roses. Some are terrible, some are great and some are in between - generalizations like they are always susceptible or any other blanket statements about resistance do not recognize the actual situation.