What Are The Best Front Yard Trees?

Have you ever wondered what the best tree for your front yard should be? There are over 60,000+ different types of trees in the world and each one has its unique characteristics. Some are better for the east coast yard and this is one of our favorites.  

The Oak Tree

The oak tree is one of the most perfect trees of all time. Why? They are strong, sturdy in a storm, and can provide benefits to your entire property. From cooling down your home in the dog days of summer by blocking the sun for extended periods of time. To providing shelter to wildlife in your neighborhood.

While some homeowners worry about the size of limbs of oak trees and the potential for falling during winter storms causing damage. With proper tree maintenance and care, they can provide an overwhelming list of benefits with little risk.

With over 600 different types of oak species, there is a breathtakingly large variety of oak trees available to match your home and property perfectly. Oak trees can also be deciduous or evergreen trees. With Deciduous oak tree’s leaves changing in the fall and falling off. Other oak species, evergreen ones, continue to have green leaves year-round.

Depending on your style or preference you may prefer a tree that changes colors along with the rest of your neighborhood. If you are looking for more privacy or sheltering benefits for your property an evergreen tree may be the way to go.

What Size Oak Are You Looking For?

Depending on the size of your yard or your goals for your tree you may want to look at different species as well. You may know you aren’t in your forever home and are looking for a quick-growing oak to add character to your yard for better resell value. The bur oak grows on average of 7-8 inches a year and would still look like a sapling 5 years later. While a Nuttall oak can grow up to 4 feet a year, and sometimes more! Planning your trees to fit the needs of your family, property, and future is key.

Did you know that some of the shortest oaks can be just 30 feet tall? If you live in a ranch-style home with a minimal yard you may look for a Japanese evergreen oak. If you happen to have a large amount of land or want a statement piece that will make friends and family use their sunroof on their way down the driveway. A white oak may be exactly what you are looking for. White oaks can reach over 100 feet in height and are beautiful trees in their early stages and as they mature.

Oak Tree Maintenance

With proper care and maintenance, oak trees can last not only a lifetime but for generations to come. Most oaks prefer the following:

• Well-draining soil
• Full sun all day every day
• Seasonal changes

• While some trees do well year-round with very little temperature change. Oak’s often do well with the natural changing of the seasons.
• Receiving precipitation in the winter can allow for no watering is needed for your oak tree during the colder months!

• Pruning
  • Depending on the type of oak you get this will change.
  • Deciduous oaks often need annual pruning to make sure they are growing in the direction you want and maintain great tree health.

• Limbs can become diseased or grow too large for their own good, leaving them susceptible during winter storms of breaking.

• Evergreen oaks can often go a lifetime without ever receiving a pruning. If you’re looking for a low-maintenance tree that provides great privacy an evergreen oak may be the perfect choice for you.

• Fertilizer and Tree Nutritional Health
  • Just like babies and kids, tree nutrition at the younger stages is extremely important.
  • Fertilizing early spring and in the fall are perfect times to help trees reach their full potential and mature trees continue to stay healthy through all seasons.

Going Traditional

And If you want to go traditional the oak is the perfect tree as the red oak is the official state tree of New Jersey! The red oak is a fast-growing tree that provides a large amount of shade, beautiful colors in the fall, and needs very little maintenance in comparison to other more meticulous oaks.

No matter which tree you decide from our list of options an oak tree is a perfect tree for your New Jersey home. While other options may exist, the oak in all its varieties is hard to beat.

Need More Arborist Advice? Read our Guest Posts on the Arbor Day Foundation Website!

Here at Friendly Tree Service, we are proud to provide expert tree care services to our customers, both on and off the field. With nearly 30 years experience in New Jersey tree care, we know trees inside and out – it’s what we do.

In our commitment to educating tree owners and tree stewards on keeping their trees friendly, we have put together tips and resources in partnership with our friends at the Arbor Day Foundation.

Read our tree care posts on arborday.org.

And remember – if you have questions about your tree’s health, tree pruning or tree removal, we offer free tree hazard and awareness assessments to tree owners located in our service area.

Benefits of Hiring a NJ Board of Tree Experts Registered Business

A Licensed Tree Care Operator (LTCO) is a person who has been examined or who has the required experience to be able to acquire the license and are competent in the knowledge and experience of tree pruning, repairing, brush cutting or removal, tree removal, and stump grinding or removal all with safety in mind. These professionals demonstrate high ethical and moral standards in the practice of tree care and are licensed by the New Jersey Board of Tree Experts. Licensed Tree Care Operators must obtain continuing educational credits over their licensing period, thereby insuring LTCOs are up-to-date on new information, skills and techniques in the tree care profession.

Services offered by Licensed Tree Care Operator include:

Tree Maintenance (Pruning and Repairing)
Tree Removals, Brush Cutting or Removal
Stump Grinding or Removal

Read more on the NJTreeExperts.org website.

Your New Jersey Tree Experts

Friendly Tree is your New Jersey tree care service of choice for many reasons. The most important reason is that our team members are actual certified arborists recognized for our education and experience in the art and science of arboriculture. We are craftsmen, scientists, detectives, artists, engineers and have the needed knowledge base to be thorough in their craft of tree care. The New Jersey arborist is faced with complex issues and many potential environmental stresses on our trees. Tree health and tree safety inspections that we do look at how weather, chemicals (lawn treatments, pool water etc.) effect our NJ trees past present and future.  Arborists with field experience are true detectives in that we have to look for clues in past damage to the tree and the surrounding areas. We see a lot of construction damage or at least the effects of it. Certified arborists in New Jersey do not always know the history of the property or if there was damage to the root zone of a tree during construction. We can see the signs, not with x-ray vision but through experience and knowing the queues given by the tree and the overall site condition.

We also see potential issues and stress on trees in urban areas. Traffic and congestion pose a threat to trees because of emissions and chemical particulates in the air. Urban arborists must understand the physiology of a specific type of tree and how to impact the negatives done by pollution and high carbon impact.

Arborists in New Jersey must be aware of the appropriate times and manners in which trees are to be pruned to accomplish the goal of pruning with minimal negative impact on the trees in question. Tree identification is critical in deciphering the most appropriate means to treat  a specific type of tree. We also have faced unique fungal, bacterial and insect issues recently. The Emerald Ash Borer or EAB is afflicting our Ash trees and if introduced assure sudden death this combined with the blight on Ash we are losing these precious trees by the thousands.

An arborist has many tools to combat many issues that can harm trees but unfortunately there are many of mother nature’s whims that we cannot prevent or correct. We have been faced with extreme weather (hurricanes, super storms, drought and wind storms) extreme weather is the leading cause for tree damage and has created hazards that we must work hard to remedy and or simply and sadly clean up the mess of a fallen or severely damaged tree to avoid damage or injury. Even expertly pruned trees can only handle so must stress and extremes in weather before succumbing.

Friendly Tree Service works diligently to stay on top of the most up to date technology and research to help offer the most appropriate course of action to safeguard your trees and shrubs. We are mandated to perform continuing education to maintain certification. This is not limited to the science of arboriculture but also to safe work practices, OSHA and ANSI standard changes and the knowledge of new procedures in pruning and fertilization etc. that are less invasive and more effective.

Organic Top Soil Delivery

Quality organic top soil is rich with bio-available nutrients and “alive”.  The best quality is dark in color ( dark drown or black) which is key to show high levels of organic matter. Your product should have little odor but be on the sweet side not bitter or manure like. This bad smell is a show of dead, rotting organics which will likely steal nitrogen and nutrients from your planting beds. It should be free of large rocks and not have too high of a clay content. Quality soil should perk or drain well so rain/ water gets to the roots of your plants. If it has too much clay the water will not get to the root zone easily. Test it by grabbing a handful and making a ball out of it. Premium topsoil will crumble apart but if it is high in clay it will retain its shape.

Top soil delivery  in essex county, morris county, Passaic county , Hudson and union counties is available generally same day or next day. Our product is premium screened high organic matter which is what you need for healthy planting beds. Start out with high quality product delivered by Friendly Tree to assure your new plants thrive not just survive. A base of topsoil added to existing planting beds or existing lawns can add a natural boost to the performance of your landscapes.

If you see topsoil that is tan or grey be leary. Likely the organic matter is very low and likely this is dirt fill being passed off as quality product, but it is not. Color, smell and texture are the best ways to make sure you are getting quality product delivered to your home or office.

Bulk top soil delivery is our specialty. Friendly Tree can delivery as little as 1 cubic yard of soil all the way up to 50 cubic yards in a single truck load. Use our handy yardage calculator at www.friendlytree.com to figure out how much product you need? If there are still questions about how much topsoil is needed for a garden bed please don’t hesitate to call.

Friendly Tree Service offers delivery to Montclair, glen ridge and surrounding areas as well as topsoil delivery to Morristown and Madison as well as surrounding towns. Friendly Tree also offers delivery to union, springfield and short hills and surrounding towns as well as Rutherford and all of Bergen and Passaic counties.

The Usefulness of Trees

Did you know that one tree creates enough oxygen each year to support two human beings? And that more than 5, 000 unique products are made from trees? It’s true! Additionally, each year the average person uses the equivalent of a 100-foot tall, 18-inch wide tree, in wood and paper products. Beyond these fun facts, healthy trees can also increase property values — a statistic appreciated by 100% of homeowners.

So keep your trees maintained and healthy. It’s good for you, and it’s good for the environment. And if you like trees, feel free to share this post with your friends!