Avenue and Shade Trees for North and South—By P. J. Berckmans, ««: 
THE TWENTY-FIVE EVERGREEN AND DECIDUOUS TREES THAT THE VETERAN HORTICULTURIST HAS 
SELECTED AS THE BEST ANSWERING TO THIS PECULIAR COMBINATION OF ORNAMENT AND UTILITY 
UT of the large 
number of culti- 
vated trees there are 
comparatively but 
very few available 
for shade purposes 
in streets or about 
the home, and fewer 
still for planting in 
avenues. We have 
to consider not only 
the soil, locality, and 
climate, but more 
particularly the indi- 
vidual requirements 
and adaptations of 
particular trees to 
the special purposes ; 
and again, particu- 
larly in the case of 
avenue effects, there 
is also the harmony 
of the outline of the 
foliage and mass of 
the trees with the 
architectural char- 
acter of the building 
to which the ap- 
proach leads. 
In dealing with a 
particular tree there 
are the questions of 
the individual beauty 
ef form, foliage, and 
period and profusion of its flower. Gener- 
ally the flowering features of avenue and 
shade trees are not of very great import- 
ance, but they may be made to add very 
The most beautiful evergreen shade tree of the 
South is the live oak. 
covered with Spanish moss 
In moist regions it becomes 
The grandest of all evergreen trees for the South. 
Magnolia grandifiora. 
to the ground because of ample space to develop 
greatly to the beauty of the home at certain 
seasons of the year, and this is particularly 
true in the case of places that are designed 
for occasional occupancy, where an effort 
should be made to select trees that are 
looking their very best at the time when the 
place is in use. 
The ideal shade tree is one that makes a 
fairly dense mass of leafage early in the 
spring and holds it late. It should also be 
adaptable to a great range of variety of soils, 
perfectly hardy, and should also grow freely 
in the early years of its life, so that the 
desired effect may not be too long delayed. 
The ultimate height and spread of a tree 
designed for avenues should be consid- 
ered in relation to the width of the street. 
Deciduous trees are generally better than 
evergreen trees, because the shedding of the 
foliage in the winter time permits a better dry- 
ing of the roadway as well as of the adjacent 
buildings, besides admitting light more freely 
to the latter. 
Trees should be selected with great care 
because they are permanent features of the 
landscape and after they have become 
established, changes in the scheme are very 
costly and seldom satisfactory. ‘The greatest 
error in avenue planting is overcrowding. 
Plant always with the future effect in view. 
If young trees are spaced at a distance which 
seems proper for them at the time of planting, 
118 
Note how it is furnished right 
it will only be a very 
few years before 
serious trouble is en- 
countered, unless 
rigorous thinning is 
done. Somehow very 
few people can sum- 
mon up courage to 
cut down a healthy 
and handsome tree, 
eventhough thesacri- 
fice will add to the 
beauty and dignity 
of the survivors. 
Large, spreading 
trees for avenue 
effects should not 
stand closer than 
fifty feet, and in no 
case is a less space 
than thirty feet to be 
considered with the 
trees named in this 
article. 
In selecting the 
trees described below 
I have been guided 
by my own apprecia- 
tion of beauty and 
utility combined, 
particularly having 
consideration to the 
trees that may be 
relied upon to suc- 
ceed under a variety of conditions. In the 
Middle and Lower Southern states there 
is a richer list for selection than in the 
Northern states and it is useless to endeavor 
to grow the more tender trees in the extreme 
north, for which reason I have indicated in 
The most columnar avenue tree is the Lombardy 
poplar, but valueless for shade 
