There is a poem by Ogden Nash, wonderfully brief and loaded with meaning:

“The trouble with a kitten is that it eventually becomes a cat”

Of course, in a column called “Trees and People” I am not disparaging cats. I’m not even talking about cats.

When I worked as a retail nurseryman, many years ago, we had a customer, who had a sizable garden. He came in on a regular basis, constantly buying young trees. His apparent intention was to turn his property into a botanic garden.

Some years ago, he passed on. I met the new owner of the property, who also has a strong appreciation for trees and what they contribute. He had found that the tree collection had become a crowded jumble and found it necessary to remove many of them.

In my own backyard, I would love to have a collection of trees. I’d have coast redwoods, catalpas, a dove tree, dogwoods, collections of maples, magnolias and oaks, katsuras, chionanthus, tupelo, and so forth, ad infinitum. In reality, life has blessed me with enough space for a tiny vegetable garden and lawn, a perennial border and a few well placed, small trees.

I’ve found that the principle of the “borrowed view” works well. Our neighbors have big coast redwoods. Thankfully, those trees are about 100 feet away from our house. We can enjoy their cool, green, stately presence without having to clean up after them or dealing with invasive roots. Another neighbor has a fairly young valley oak in their back lot, in view over our back fence. As it continues to mature, I anticipate that it will be kept in abeyance from our property line by the PG&E tree crews who will be keeping it clear of the power lines that run  above our back fence. Still other neighbors have big pines, and a nice big Chinese elm, again about 100 feet from our house.

So, we can sit in our backyard and enjoy, virtually, a large park, maintained by our neighbors. 

How sweet it is.

One of the classic mistakes made by tree lovers, nursery sales people and even landscape architects, is over-planting and selecting trees that will grow too large for the available space. That cute little kitten of an Italian stone pine seedling is, before you know it, a lion, hungry for all of the space and sunlight within          40 feet of the trunk. 

Sometimes the “mistake,” is not a mistake at all. It’s just nature doing its thing. Seedlings “volunteer” wherever the seed lands on a favorable spot. Around the Napa area those volunteer seedlings often include valley oaks, coast live oaks, black walnuts and Japanese privets. They are all large-growing trees, and it is rare to see them pop up in the perfect spot. Usually, they are found  next to a fence post, a foundation or the trunk of another tree; little nooks where the radicle — the initial root from the seed — finds a crevice in which it can elongate. 

I have met quite a few kind-hearted and thrifty people who don’t want to see little trees go to waste.  Some folks dig them up and move them to better locations. And I think that is admirable. But, personally, perhaps for lack of time and space, I have become increasingly ruthless over the years, steeling my feelings, and following the dictum:  “Any plant in the wrong place is a weed.”

When you are considering planting a tree on your property, just follow a few common sense guidelines for improved chances of long-term success:

 • Define the functions you have in mind for the tree —shade, privacy screen, flowering accent tree, wind buffer, softening or complementing building architecture, seasonal interest, define a space, form a background, fruit production, habitat.

 • Prioritize the functions and decide on your top priorities.

 • Consider the size of the available space, both in the ground and in the air and make a realistic projection as to the size of the tree that would perform the function and fit the space.

  • Hit the books, Web sites, garden centers and neighborhoods to identify possible selections. A good on-line resource is: http://selectree.calpoly.edu

• Let time work for you. • Don’t plant a fast, large growing tree in too small a space, just to get quick results. The old claim “Oh, we’ll just start pruning it when it gets too big” does not usually work.

Bill Pramuk is an registered consulting arborist. Visit his Web site, www.billpramuk.com, send questions to info@billpramuk.com, or call him at 226-2884.