For the Landscape Architect, choosing trees for a specific site entails a number of factors, some strictly aesthetic, others extremely practical. But the “bottom line” is just what the designer?EUR??,,????'??+and the client?EUR??,,????'??+want the completed project to look like, and what trees, species or size, are needed to make that design complete and stay within the budget.

“Design intent,” Gene Newman, chairman of the board and CEO of MND 8 Partners, Inc., of Dallas, called the process of choosing specific sizes, types and species of trees.

“Selecting trees depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with a particular look,” Newman said. “Live Oak, one of our favorite trees in Texas, as an example, can have very different characteristics. You can get a beautiful tree with a spreading canopy for a horizontal look or you can look for, and find, an upright tree for an entirely different application.”

Today, a large percentage of the trees specified by Landscape Architects are container grown trees from nurseries, whereas, not to long ago, according to Newman, we used to ‘field collect’ every tree we used, now most of them come from nurseries and many are container grown.”

Another recommendation of nursery grown trees came from Karl Von Bieberstein, a partner at MND. “If you deal with reputable firms, you can depend on the product. They know what they are doing and you can find out such necessary criteria as uniformity of the crown, strong branching structures and the lack of insect infestation and other problems with the trees.”

Availability is another facet of the equation that must be taken intoconsideration. Steady growth in the number of nurseries has helped the situation a great deal. Remember, not long ago all the trees had to be “field collected.” One example of that happened in Dallas just a few years ago when Dan Kiley, the renowned Landscape Architect from the
Northeast was designing the landscape for the Criswell Development skyscraper in downtown Dallas known as Fountain Place. Because of the I.M. Pei design of the building, the exterior landscape wasprimarily made up of water features?EUR??,,????'??+fountains, from which the building got its name. Kiley specified Bald Cypress and literally hundreds of these trees were used in the half-acre site. “You couldn’t find Bald Cypress anywhere around,” Von Bieberstien commented, “for some months after the project was completed, so we just found alternatives until the supply could catch up with the demand.” Bald Cypress, which is a native tree in East Texas is not only one of the few decidious conifers, but it also grows well in the Dallas area, one of the few East Texas trees to do so because of Dallas’ extremely alkaline soil.

The trees were found. Las Colinas Landscape was the successful bidder on the project and they had spotted some very large trees on a farm south of Dallas which is owned by one of Dallas’ first and best known nurserymen, the owner of Fuller’s nursery. The Fuller family had a nursery in North Dallas for a number of years, but when a freeway was built near their location, they sold their land and retired. But, a number of years before, Mr. Fuller had planted some trees on his farm south of Dallas 41 and they had attained the size that was necessary for this particular project?EUR??,,????'??+21 inch caliper Oak trees.

The Las Colinas Landscape people began their preparations to move the trees long before the corporate headquarters job came into being and had convinced Fuller that those particular trees would be used in very prominent locations in downtown Dallas where they would be seen and appreciated. They then went onto the property a year before the trees were to be moved and dug all around them with a backhoe so that when they were moved, shock would be minimized. Las Colinas then cabled the trees and every month would come in and tighten the cables to pull the branches closer into it the trunk of the tree (this was done so they could transport the tree through the city). They then balled the trees, dug a hole down through the ball in three places and put cables through the holes to attach to a steel plate on the bottom of the plate on the bottom of the ball. A crane lifted the balled trees onto a truck to be moved to the site and there was only one tree per 18-wheel truck when they appeared at the site in downtown Dallas on a Saturday morning.

?EUR??,,????'??If you deal with reputalbe firms, you can depend on the product.?EUR??,,????'??

“With the availability of these trees, both the architect on the job, Ted Amberg, and I went out to choose just which of the trees we wanted and we actually selected the individual tree that went into a particular place in the design,” Newman said.

He continued, “the I.M. Pei firm takes a great deal of time on the most infinite details and that’s the reason their projects are often superior to others. Amberg knew what they wanted to accomplish and he started out by helping select the individual trees and was there the day the trees were delivered and planted in their concrete wells, wells that were above grade, but in holes so deep that a man could stand straight up at the bottom and his head would be below the level of the plaza.

(MND & Partners, Inc. has worked with I.M. Pei on a number of projects including Dallas City Hall.)

In describing the project, Newman said “it was a real team effort between the architect, the Landscape Architect, and the landscape contractor. That is the real key, because, like doing anything, if you have the whole team working on it nobody is surprised at the outcome and everyone is happy. If they’re not, they have only themselves to blame.”

(Note: all of the twenty plus trees lived until the major freeze of 1983 when two were lost, but they were replaced and the “outdoor room” is beautiful and used extensively today as a comfortable urban space.)

Finding trees like the ones mentioned above is rare in this part of the country, but that may not be the case in other areas. Each state, and frequently different areas of a state, require a Landscape Architect to follow special guidelines in not only selecting trees, but in planting them. Karl Von Bieberstien worked for some time in Pennsylvania and he said, “We used different trees up there and planted them differently. For example, we used numbers of different conifers and we used Maples, Hemlock and Birch trees. These aren’t very available here and don’t grow well in this soil and climate. This ‘Blackland Prairie’ is not a place where native trees grow and so such trees as Cedar Elm and Live Oak are most successful trees here today. Hackberry trees and Cottonwoods grow along the creek beds and we have Red Cedar that does well, but until Elderica Pines were introduced into our area, the only conifer we had was Bald Cypress and it is quite expensive to use to any great extent.”

The color of foliage is another consideration in this part of the country. “Like planting flowers, we don’t want everything to ‘bloom’ at one time,” Von Bieberstein continued. “In our part of Texas, the Ashes turn first in Fall, then the Cedar Elm and the Red Oak turn a flaming red. The knowledgable Landscape Architect takes this into consideration when determining what trees to use for a site design.”

“In park development, for example, it is very critical to understand the natural groupings of the trees. In this area, we have ‘cedar breaks’ in nature and smart designers develop plant groupings that are sensitive to that by understanding the region.”

Some native trees are still selected by Landscape Architects from the “wild” but availability is the problem. Haden Cowdrey, president of the Dallas landscape contracting firm, The Cowdrey Company, said that getting trees from ranches in the area is becoming more of a problem because the ranchers have been “stung” by some tree diggers whom he described as “outlaws.” “They come in and dig trees, don’t fill in the holes, leave gates open and tear down fences. The ranchers have gotten pretty tired of that and have refused to open their property to legitimate tree selection and purchase, therefore our sources of such trees are dwindling.”

Nurseries in Texas are continuing to offer, when possible, field grown trees and containerized trees. ``The problem with containerized trees,” Newman said, “is that although you can find some good native trees in the nurseries In containers, you do not find the larger trees. They grow trees only to a certain size, usually two-inch to four-inch caliper and any larger trees, if they have them, are field grown.” One species he mentioned especially which is popular in this area is the Golden Rain Tree, a lovely landscape addition.

“There is something else you must put into the equation,” Newman continued, “while we might be able to find a six-inch Golden Rain Tree, are we going to pay four times as much for it and get half as much value, or should we get 8 smaller ones that are readily available at a third the cost and make a grove of them?”

“Often designers think ‘bigger is better’, but that is not always the case. Sometimes we have to step back and see the forest as well as the trees.”

There are some other factors which Newman explained.

“People will tell you that a four-inch caliper Live Oak is going to be as large as that eight-inch caliper tree your looking at in two years. There is a lot of validity to that. Sometimes a smaller tree will grow faster than a larger tree because it is younger and more vigorous and will respond more quickly with less shock, but there are times when we all get caught up in the “immediate effect” principal in our designs. We are trying to design for a special situation for the client and perhaps he wants the “finished look” immediately. The ’ only way we can get that is by using older and larger trees.”

From the Landscape Contractor

Cowdrey says that when he plans to take a Landscape Architect out to see some trees for a project, whether it be in the field, or in a nursery, he often goes to the site first and pre-selects the trees, even putting ribbons on some of them that he feels will meet the specification. “That saves the Landscape Architect time and to him, time is money,” he explained.

Some of the specifics for which he looks for are: the health and height of the tree, good color, full size leaves, shape, a healthy looking bark and branching and a “tree with lot of vitality.” One thing he specifically looks for is a tree that is wider than it is tall with a rough textured bark. “That is usually an old tree that just hasn’t grown very much. It is stunted and that usually comes from growth in poor soil.”

?EUR??,,????'??Sometimes we have to step back and see the forest as well as the trees.?EUR??,,????'??

Cowdrey has found that many Landscape Architects are gravitating toward container grown trees, but that can be a problem. Except for the very large specimen trees, the trend is toward container grown trees up to four-inch caliper. Above four-inch caliper, the container has to be so big that it is hard to move and trees do not grow as fast in a container when they get that large. Above six-inch caliper, you are going to have to find the trees in the field, often at a nursery, and have them balled and burlaped for you One nursery in South Texas, Strom Nursery, has 12 inch caliper Live Oaktrees in the field and will dig them for you gladly.

Getting the trees to the site is another problem for which Cowdrey has an answer. “We try to get the larger trees dug before March 15, even if we have to bring them to our nursery to hold them for a particular project. Also, when trees have to come in from West Texas or South Texas, we make sure the trucker tarps down the trees so they are not wind-burned and we try to get them to drive at night, especially in the summer time, so the trees won’t be exposed to the hot sun in transit.”

Cowdrey suggests that every Landscape Architect will be better served if he gets to know those landscape contractors on his “bid list” well and chooses only the ones who have developed good sources for their nursery stock. “These are the people on whom the Landscape Architect can rely for good trees and other nursery stock that will do the most to make sure the landscape design is not only what the designer intended, but that the client will be pleased with the overall result.”

(The Cowdrey Company recently won two awards from the American Association of Nurseryman for their work on LTV Center and Glen Lakes Residential Development in Dallas.)

Conclusion

Choosing the species of trees, considering the availabilty of the type and the size of tree and taking budgetary constraints into are the prime considerations and they can be met by attention to sources and a study of the patterns of nature in the area. Good Luck!