what tree to plant?

[*mrgrizz*]

want to plant a tree(native) in the front lawn. to provide shade.

what is a fast growing, non limb dropping reasonably litter free tree? 

[***super_nova***]

Plastic 🙂

[*mrgrizz*]

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@***super_nova*** wrote:

Plastic

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how fast will that grow?

[creative*crisis]

I'm a big fan of bottle brushes and lilly pillies myself, both relatively fast growing and drought resistant.
Grevilleas are beautiful but fairly shortlived

[polksaladallie]

Depends on what area you live in.  This is an excellent book with details of what will grow in which area, and details of the tree, eg size, deciduous or non-deciduous, flowers, fast growing etc.

  Lots of these books for sale on you know where.

WHAT TREE IS THAT ? Stirling Macoboy

Callistemons, syzygiums, grevilleas are shrubs and not shade trees.

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists]

Find out what your council recommends...... they might choose to remove it if it's not on their list.

[lyne-flyn]

If you have a large lawn a peppercorn tree would be great...they grow very quickly, are drought resistant, don't drop their limbs and also make very little mess.

We have  two that were only about 5ft tall when we moved here 4 years ago...they are now over 15ft tall.

[evil_akuma_2002]

I'm afraid there's no such animal. Any fast-growng tree will naturally shed a lot of leaves as it grows.

However, I'd have a look at the Evergreen Alder - (Alnus Jorullensis). I used to work in a plant nursery in the '70's, and this was the fastest growing, least messy tree available.

It was originally marketed as the evergreen silver birch - it's growth habit and leaves strongly resemble the birch. It's not a native, but blends in well with them.

There are grevilleas, callistemons and syzygiums which are trees, but all are slow-growing, save for the syzygium, (lilly pilly) - I have a 15 year old specimen that's 10m  X 6m.

Failing those, have a look at the Grevillea Robusta - fast-growing, to around 15-20m, but very messy with fallen leaves and flowers. No branches dropped, however.

[lloydslights]

Hi Mr Grizz.

It appears that fast-growing trees, do tend to drop limbs more readily than slow growers.

A few questions :

How big is the front yard?

Shade required for a garden spot; or for shading the house?

Are you prepared to prune/shape (the tree I mean)?

Let's see how we go after the answers?

............

I agree with evil-akuma absolutely.

DEB

[evil_akuma_2002]

Also, give the Eucalypt species a miss - anything with a substantial canopy takes way too long to mature, and the faster-growing species, such as e.camaldulensis, only has a canopy in the last few metres of its height - 30m+.

Given good growing conditions, Tristania Conferta, (a native),  also gives a great shade canopy - but its growth and spread are limited in clay soils.