SolveYourProblem Article Series: Organic Gardening
Organic Gardening Tips & Advice

Organic Tree Varieties For Your Garden
     

There is a huge choice of organic tree varieties that you can choose for your garden. Whether you want fruit trees, flowering trees or big leafy trees to provide shade, you should be able to find a wide selection at a local organic nursery or even online.

Organic Fruit Trees

Organic fruit trees are a very popular choice for an organic garden. Depending on your climate and soil, you should have a good range to choose from. Apple, pear, plum and cherry trees grow well in a cooler and wetter climate, and once mature, will survive hard frosts in winter. Citrus fruits and peaches prefer a warm, sunny climate. Bananas, mangoes and papaya are well suited to tropical conditions.

If you have a larger amount of land, you can plant your own orchard with a mixture of fruit trees. Organic orchards are not usually planted in the regimented lines of commercial orchards. You can mix up your varieties and plant them in an irregular pattern to create a natural-looking space. You will just need to consider which trees need sun and which need shade and how tall they will grow. That way you will not make the mistake of planting a small, sun-loving tree on the shady side of a big bushy tree that will take all of the sunlight.

Planting other types of plants around and between the trees in your orchard is a great idea. If you choose compatible plants that grow together in the wild natural environment they will help to nourish each other and sometimes protect each other from pests too.

Organic Flowering Trees

Flowering trees make a lovely addition to a larger organic garden. Many fruit trees have beautiful blossom in the spring, including flowering cherry, peach, plum and some varieties of apple. Flowering cherry trees are one of the most popular and the cherry blossom season is as famous in Japan as the fall colors in New England.

Dogwood is another beautiful flowering tree. This is a tree that loves shade so if you have a shady garden it could be a good choice.

Magnolia trees have lovely flowers that appear in the spring before the leaves. You will find different varieties to suit northern or southern climates. Flower colors range from very pale cream or pink to a darker, vivid purple.

Planting Your Organic Trees

If you are starting out from bare land, be sure to prepare the ground well. You will need to dig a hole for the tree and hoe the soil around it. Keep it free from weeds and very well watered while the tree is young. Depending on the variety and the weather conditions, you may need to leave a hose running for an hour or more a day.

You may also need to protect young trees from animals who would feed on the leaves. This is especially true if you keep animals on the same land, such as goats or sheep. Rabbits will also feed on some young trees if the leaves are low enough. You can usually protect from these animals by fencing around the tree for the first few years.

Watch out too for animals that will eat the bark. A tree can be killed by having its bark gnawed around in a ring. Beavers love to eat bark. Also, many animals that would normally eat leaves will feed on bark in winter. This includes rabbits, squirrels and bears.

Most wild animals will not kill a mature tree - they seem to have an instinct of preservation for their environment. Domesticated and farm animals do not behave in the same natural ways and can be more of a problem for your organic tree plantation.

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