Tiny magenta flowers cover the branches before the foliage emerges, giving an explosion of early spring color. Creamy variegated foliage makes this native sport a show stopping centerpiece in your landscape. Alley Cat’ is a native species, drought tolerant once established, easy to care for, and is perfect for dry shade. Reddish bronze foliage in fall offers stunning autumn color.

Merlot is a perfect addition to your small landscape areas with its tight and upright form. Covered in pink-purple flowers and red-wine colored, glossy leaves incorporate in areas where the bold red color will pop with contrast. The amazing weeping form and arching stems produce a truly unique landscape experience. ‘Merlot’ makes a great specimen. Attracts birds, butterflies, and bees. Deer resistant!

You may love the one of a kind flower color this native brings to the landscape but birds and butterflies appreciate it for other reasons just as ardently. Redbud’s big, heart shaped leaves and dense, rounded form are perfect for providing shelter and nesting area for many of our area’s birds while its foliage provides caterpillar food for some our areas most sought after butterflies. Those are great reasons to grow this specimen but you might just like if for the incredible late April, reddish-purple show of flowers that it provides and the easy grow nature that will make this plant a landscape fixture. See pages 12 & 13 for more details on the American Beauties program.

Spectacular form and foliage will make you fall in love with this easy to grow, seldom seen specimen. Weeping branches form a wide, flowing umbrella covered with light blue-green nearly rounded foliage that turns a pleasing yellow in fall. Spectacular specimen. Easy to grow. Superb fall foliage color. Perfect for filling a large spot and making it a focal point in the landscape. Great landscape texture.

Compact and vase shaped, this evergreen boasts long, deep green shiny needles that almost look plastic along arching stems. Its small size and shade tolerance make this selection outstanding for use along the foundation of a house. Easy to grow, thrives in shade, deer resistant. Perfect to use as a foundation accent of to group to form a small, informal hedge. Deep green foliage is very attractive with great texture.

American chestnut, or American classic? Formerly considered one of the finest chestnut tree in the world. Green throughout the summer their colors turn into a gold, yellow in the fall. They are almost extinct in the wild, but breeders are working hard to develop species for ornament, shade, and wildlife. It produces small, edible nuts that are housed in a spiny shell that are very sweet to the taste.

This low maintenance shade tree will be a showy and edible addition to your own. The barks commonly peels and curls off it’s straight trunk. Covered in yellow-green leaves, thick-shelled hickory nuts are nestled in-between. These nuts are perfect for eating and cooking.

American hornbeam is a terrific landscape tree for naturalized areas with rich, moist, slightly acidic soil. Male and female catkins are found on the same plant and emerge in early spring. The catkins provide food for many songbirds and are also a host plant and nectar source for a wide variety of butterflies such as; eastern tiger swallowtail, striped hairstreak, and red-spotted purple. Brown nutlets ripen the fall and provide food for ruffed grouse, ring-necked pheasants, bobwhite, turkey, fox, and gray squirrels. During the autumn the deep green foliage turns yellow to orange and red.  In nature this tree is found in the understory so, it will tolerate a great deal of shade but will also perform well in sunnier sites. 

Bred for height with outstanding columnar appeal, ‘Frans Fontaine’ is the best yet, maintaining its narrow habit well into maturity and providing stunning golden color in autumn. Its superb drought resistance, tolerance of even the poorest of soils, and small footprint makes it an excellent selection for urban settings.