Landscape Shrubs

Benefits of Trees and Shrubs
The greatest benefit of incorporating trees and shrus into your landscape is that they simply make life more pleasant. Trees and shrubs create a certain presence that is uplifting to our spirits. They make us feel peaceful, serene, tranquil and restful when sitting in a grove of trees. Even hospital patients recover from surgery more quickly when they have a view of trees from their hospital room.

With their stature, strength and endurance, trees have a cathedral-like quality. Incorporating trees into your backyard also means creating wildlife habitats to delightful species of wildlife.

Planting trees and shrubs also returns your landscape to a more natural, less artificial environment. The natural cycles of plant growth, reproduction and decomposition will restore natural harmony to an urban environment. Remember to choose native species of trees to fully restore this natural harmony.

Benefits in Summer
There are some other very important benefits to having trees in your landscape design. Trees alter the environment we inhabit by improving air quality, moderating climate, harboring wildlife and conserving water. Trees achieve climate control by moderating the effects of sun, rain and wind. During the summer, the radiant energy of the sun is deflected or absorbed by leaves of deciduous trees. During winter, it is filtered by the branches of these deciduous trees. That's why we feel cooler when we stand in the shade of trees.

Benefits in Winter
During winter, we may value the radiant energy of the sun more. Therefore, plant only deciduous trees or smaller trees on the south side of your home. Trees also provide a windbreak. For more effective windbreak, choose trees that have dense foliage. This will also protect your home from the elements, like rain, sleet and hail.

Trees Raise Property Values
The property values of landscaped homes are 5-20% higher compared to non-landscaped homes! Individual trees and shrubs on our property have value, but value is also added by their variability of species, their size, the condition they're in as well as their function. Remember also that trees and shrubs have direct and indirect economic benefits.

Economic Benefits
Direct economic benefits of your trees and shrubs are usually associated with energy costs. In a tree-shaded home, you will spend less money on air conditioning. If your trees are acting as a windbreak, you'll spend less on heating costs. Also, trees only increase in value from the time they're planted until they mature. Therefore, trees should be considered a wise investment, since they only make your property more valuable. In summary, the increase in property value and the savings in energy costs that trees provide are a great benefit for a homeowner.

Indirect economic benefits are even greater and are made available to the community or even region. Trees enable power companies to use less water in their cooling towers, build fewer facilities to meet peak demands, need fewer measures to control air pollution and even reduce the amount of fossil fuels in their furnaces. This amounts to some very tangible lowered electricity bills.

So remember to incorporate trees and shrubs in your landscape design to do your part! For more information on native tree and shrub species, visit Backyard Wildlife Habitat

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