Last night I felt compelled to learn what our trees are in the yard - when we moved in there were 12 trees in the side/back yard (7 kinds of trees) and I thought I knew what a few of them were.

But turns out that there are 3 that I *thought* were crab apples - but after last night I think they're fruitless black cherry trees (either too old to fruit or are the male of the species - they do flower, beautifully.)

So that means that - when we moved in the trees, here, were:
1 quaking aspen
1 paper birch
3 shabby, old black cherry
1 sycamore
2 plum maple (or red maple. One of them was destroyed in a storm - and then rooted inself with 2 new trees that are about 3' tall...so that's 3 plum maple)
3 sweetgum trees (with the spikey balls, you know)
1 pin oak

And we grown from seed or found a lot of saplings growing in the woods that we've transplanted to the front yard. believe it or not - with all these trees here when we moved in not a SINGLE ONE is planted in a place where it gives shade to the house - and the front yard had only 1 tree in it - all the others are off to the sides....and finally I've identified them all:
11 cedar
2 cockspur hawthorn
1 cottonwood
2 maple
1 redbud
1 palmetto palm
1 pomegranate
1 lemon tree
4 maple
2 sweetgum *yeah - 2 MORE sweetgum*
and 5 hemlock
3 yucca (ok - not really trees but I'm sticking it on here)
4 climbing roses
and an infinity of teed-leaf ivy (the tiny ivy-cottage style)

and some cow-patty cactus

LOL - ok - list all your trees and plants and their saga.

haha... wow you must have been bored... im not really into botany but Im a gen. biology major so my first class will be botany

LOL
I started this because we were wanting to match trees at the corner of the yard - a few of the older ones that were here, first, are dying and we'd like to replace them after we cut them down.

So now we know what we need to get and one of these days I'll get out there and give 'em a whack...Only because if we don't cut them down then they'll continue to break apart and fall into the street - putting drivers at risk.

One thing we won't be replacing are the black cherry trees. They're interesting but look so scrubby - they just look dead most of the year. It's the soil or the air, they just aren't doing well.

The redbud is doing best out of all the trees we've planted - and I'm surprised - for 2 years growth wsa little to none and last year i honestly thought it died but this year it's grown 4 new feet and now it's taller than me.

Good luck with your classes :)