Although the Kwanzan cherry tree will have messy flower drop - that actually can be pretty since it looks like pink snow - I might choose it because of no fruit & less overall messy than a Service Berry - which is also a nice tree but does bear fruit. At 6’ from driveway, almost any tree will hang over the driveway. Any of your neighbors have any of these trees that you can see for a mature tree view?

I don't know of any Kwanzan cherry tree in my neighborhood. I wish I did.

I wonder whether the Serviceberry Tree's berries would be eaten quickly by birds. If not, then it could get messy. I would also like the tree to be the smallest and slowest growing one. I don't think the location is good for this tree, but city just wants another tree planted.

If they will not let you plant by the existing tree, where the old one croaked..." I would pick the redbud. You can clip to shape without anyone knowing. It grows slow.

Kentucky Yellowwoods are just gorgeous. The seeds/fruit are light and dry, like maple helicopters. Easy to brush off a car or sweep off the driveway. Redbuds should produce a dry seedpod, too. They're smaller than a Kentucky Yellowwood. I have a black cherry that produces a ton of tiny fruits that disappear immediately and I never see the seeds, excreted or fresh. My crapapple produces a lot of sticky, messy fruit that is a pain to clean off cars. Serviceberry includes several species, which range from largish shrub, to large tree. It's very hard to know what you'll get from just "serviceberry". Serviceberries will produce fruit. I'm pretty sure most of it is edible, but seedy and bland (ie not worth eating IMO). Whether the fruit will be gobbled down by birds and never seen again, like my Black cherry or a sticky mess on the driveway and cars like my crapapple, I can't say.

Redbud. Beautiful in spring and not messy.

I am going to let you help me pick a tree for my patio this fall.

floral, I was hoping the excreted berries would be excreted away from my property!

I'm not worried about the parked cars on our residential street. We are a well treed community and the cars are not unsightly. The tree would definitely be prettier than a car though.

Sherry, the city will not plant where the tree fell, nor anywhere near it. The reasoning is that the old tree roots will be problematic for planting they said. From what I am reading, it seems that the Redbud grows at an "average" rate. But you say it grows slow? Slow would be good. As for no one could tell branches were removed---the city will be checking in on this tree for three years to make sure it is still there, no unnecessary pruning is being done and to see whether it is thriving. Feels like we are being watched! That's our tree bylaw for you.

Sigrid, you make good points! My thoughts are that the Yellowood tree is the biggest growing one of the bunch. That kind of puts me off about it. Even though on one side is my driveway, the neighbor's crabapple is not very far from this proposed planting and then a little further is the silver maple of my neighbors. In my opinion, the tree is being planted too close to the other trees. South facing for this planting tree will be our driveway. Maybe I could say that the growth of this tree may tend to grow more on the "south" side rather than the "north" side. Maybe? The tree would then be growing more over my driveway.

Sigrid, my friend has a pagoda dogwood and it is very pretty and gets berries. This dogwood is also right by her patio. (Sherry maybe consider that tree?) She also says she never sees the berries for long before they are gobbled up.

My parents had a crabapple tree on their tiny frontage. My dad hated that city tree for the 40 years he lived there. Too messy.

I realize too that we don't really know what cultivar the city will plant when they say Serviceberry. I want to ask which cultivar the city is talking about but am afraid to. But I do believe it would be a tree not a shrub as the city wants to plant trees. The city are doing me a "favour" by changing the location of the tree, so I am to be thankful. But the city doesn't clean up after the trees, nor do the roots of these trees stay on city property! The city has also changed their policy about trimming the city trees by lengthening the time frame in which they will come to do any work on "their" trees. They only want to come once in seven years now---except if the situation is dangerous or the tree has died.

The Redbud is not messy. Hmmm . . .

And . . . the Yellowwood tree is out of consideration because it is too big:

"Yellowwood will grow to be about 45 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 45 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 5 feet from the ground"

We are left with:

Eastern Redbud tree

Serviceberry (which cultivar?)

Kwanzan Cherry tree

We will need to make up our mind in a day or so.

I am choosing the Kwanzan Cherry tree as my first choice and Redbud as my second choice. Then it is up to the city whether they actually plant any of these. My neighbor had two trees replaced by the city. They chose two different trees. They ended up with two of the same trees. That's how the city works. So, where I am, it is much better to plant trees on your own property as you will have control over your trees, at least while they are young---and before the tree bylaw kicks in. And plant them near the city property line so that the city can't plant anything else due to limitations in space. Had we only known . . .

I've seen a numerous planting (dozens) of yellowwoods along a highway median that are ~40 yrs old, and they are not very big, at most 30 ft tall and most are less. So worrying about one getting too big is not a concern IMHO.

Bengz, here in Ontario, Canada the yellowood tree is described as:

Yellowwood will grow to be about 45 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 45 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 5 feet from the ground.

You do realize that I only have a width of 8 feet between my paved driveway and my neighbor's property. So the tree might be planted 5 feet from my driveway and will also overhang the sidewalk. The city would never allow us to plant a replacement tree in that amount of space as trees should be a distance away from hard surfaces and neighbor's properties---and a certain distance between trees. But it seems the "rules" are different when they are planting opposed to a residential owner planting a tree.

So any of these trees will overhang our driveway and sidewalk in the future. Not the right place for any tree with a wide shape in my opinion. But I am forced to have a tree. And, as far as I can tell, the Yellowwood (Cladrastis Kentukea or Cladrastis Lutea) has the widest canopy and Eastern Redbud has the next widest canopy.

So you've got 4 options: two native options (serviceberry and redbud), one semi-native (yellowwood - it's native to North America but southern North America, not Canada), and one that's not native (Kanzan cherry is native to Japan/Asia.)

Personally, I would select a native tree over a non-native. Serviceberry and redbud are both small, ornamental trees. I don't know anything about yellowwood ... never seen one around here. The cherry trees in D.C. are pretty, and it seems that a Kanzan should be similar to those, so as non-natives go, I do like that option.

The serviceberry will have fruit that will be consumed by birds (and redistribute the processed form wherever they feel like, which may be elsewhere or may be directly under the branch they are sitting on while harvesting their lunch.) Comparing with a black cherry (per Sigrid's comment), our black cherries are incredibly messy; our serviceberry is not messy. Serviceberries can be multi-trunked or single-trunked; they have very different appearances; both are pretty, but it's a wild card for shape. Our mature serviceberry is multi-stemmed and about 20' tall; it would be about 20' wide if the neighbor's bamboo weren't abusing it. Its lower branches are pruned to be about 5' up so we can walk under it; they would be lower naturally. The single-trunked form will be more tree-like. Also, if considering a serviceberry, take a look around for junipers (e.g. Eastern Red Cedars), and if there are some, check for rust ... also check that crabapple for rust; if the crabapple has cedar-hawthorn rust, the serviceberry will likely develop it, as well; if the crabapple is okay, you're probably in the clear for rust.

The redbud should be a small single-trunk tree. I can't give feedback on its tidiness, since ours is still too small to impact anything. We planted it at the corner of our garden as a little knee-high sapling about two ago (it all blurs together ... it might have been three years ago); it's maybe 2.5-3 feet tall and caged for its own protection.

The redbud seems to grow very slowly (maximum six inches in the couple years since we planted it.) The serviceberry grew faster but also started larger; that one was put in as a 6-7 foot tree about 25-27 years ago.

BlueberryBundtcake:

"Personally, I would select a native tree over a non-native." I hear people say that a lot. In the 40 years I have lived in my house, I have two fully grown sugar maples that totally cover my backyard and I had two birch trees (until the one fell). That is on a 50 x 100' lot. I think that is pretty good. So picking a native tree is not high on my agenda. I think planting trees in the right spot is of the utmost importance. I think one non-native tree that might even be the envy of my street, sounds good to me. Having a bit of beauty to enjoy and look forward to is worth something too.

Your serviceberry sounds nice. It is a bit rather low. Don't know how that would compare with what our city would plant. My husband and son are about 6' 2 inches. Not sure if my husband would enjoy bending down to cut the grass in the future. We would trim any tree we get if it needed it. But the city does not want us to trim their trees at all.

Thank you for mentioning about rust. I will have a look at our neighbor's crabapple tree. No junipers are nearby. The rust doesn't kill the tree though?

I don't think the city will be planting anything too small. I do not expect any of these trees to be only 3 feet high.

I don't like having little control about what is planted right by my property. This might sound stupid to others, but as a gardener, I don't want a lot of tree roots in my yard. And even though the city plants on "their property," the roots of "their tree" will be mostly on my property, not theirs. I know that may sound silly to some, but when you have a lot of roots already that affect the growth of your plants, more roots are not something to look forward to.

My point was more about growth speed. I wouldn't expect the city to plant a sapling, but you wanted a tree that grew slowly, and thus far, our redbud is very slow growing. The serviceberry is quite airy but grew much more quickly, until the bamboo stole all its light and broke several branches (snow laden bamboo crushes it or whips back at it when the snow falls off and snaps the poor tree's branches.) I'd say it's been pretty close to its current size for about ten years. If the city will not allow you to prune lower branches, a multi-trunked serviceberry would probably have its lowest branches 3-4 feet off the ground.

This was April 2020:

Sorry the tree is a bit hard to discern from the maple behind it on the right ... I don't seem to have a picture of it leafed out on here ... I'll have to take one.

No, rust doesn't generally kill the tree ... just make galls on the junipers and splotches and bristly structures on the leaves and fruit of apples, hawthorns, serviceberries, quince, etc.

https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/gardens-gardening/your-garden/help-for-the-home-gardener/advice-tips-resources/insects-pests-and-problems/diseases/rusts/cedar-hawthorn-rust

If there are no junipers, you should be in the clear, since the fungus needs both hosts ...

I don't know what the city will plant in the end. I can pick a tree and then they plant a different one from the one I pick. I believe though they will choose from the four trees. So I am interested in hearing the thoughts about these trees.

Good to know the redbud seems to be a slow grower. Too bad your serviceberry has suffered abuse from the bamboo, BlueberryBundtcake. But it still looks pretty good to me.

I asked about rust because if a tree has a disease, but the disease won't kill the tree, the city doesn't allow us to remove it. It's always disappointing when a plant or tree is diseased and sick. Thanks for the link!