What Trees to put in the Garden: How to choose the most suitable

As we have already been talking about in previous articles, here in Spain we are already finishing the summer and that entails a harvest of our fruits. And in a few weeks, we will have nothing and we will start planning our winter garden and the next summer garden.

trees in the orchard

Perhaps some of you have thought about planting trees, well today I am here to write a little about this topic since we often have doubts about what to plant, what irrigation to use, it will harm our orchard… Well, we are going to know some trees that can help us.

Many of you are agrohuertistas who have their garden in a city. Seeing the design of a few years ago that was done in cities, many green areas were limited to small spaces where nothing had been built. Without taking into account that a tree next to a house can have benefits that I am going to try to quantify in the following lines:

General Benefits of Trees

Cooling of the environment, a healthy and young tree has an effect on the environment equivalent to 10 air conditioning machines for a building.
We are going to talk about this fact in a more concrete way. If we plant a deciduous tree on the south and west sides of the house, it will keep it cool in summer and allow light to pass through in winter. This means that in summer the temperature can be 3 to 6 degrees cooler in neighborhoods with trees around them. In energy data, it is a saving of air conditioning that is reflected in 3% in the first 5 years and 12% during the following 15.
Environmental pollution, in regards to pollution, a group of trees can reduce between 9% and 13%. It is a fact to take into account since one of the problems in cities is the increase in respiratory diseases such as pneumonia, bronchitis or asthma. But, we also have to take into account other contaminations that we do not see with our eyes, such as the quality of the soil. Soil pollution is another problem found in cities and trees can reduce it by between 27% and 43%.. Something to keep in mind for those who have a garden in the cities.
Added value, perhaps these reasons have not served you well enough to plant a tree in the garden of your house where this year you have started to cultivate your garden. Well, from a real estate point of view, planting a tree can increase the value of a house by 10% and 30%. Of course, if this is in good condition, let’s see if now we are going to plant a branch and tell the real estate agent that our house is worth more.
Investment in the future, if we add up all these reasons, planting a tree can give us great benefits for the environment, for health, energy savings… that will help improve our way of life.

Poplars in the orchards of Urueñas (Segovia)

How can a tree help in the garden?

Already knowing what the contribution of a tree can be in a city, we can continue to have doubts about what a tree can help us with. I am going to try to give you four functions that a tree can perform in an orchard and from here, you choose:

fruit trees

It is normally the most frequent choice for planting in a garden. Being able to eat our own plums or apples is a pleasure equal to that of picking our own lettuce. We have to keep in mind that the fruit comes from the flower and that if it suffers some setback, we will not have fruits. Pay close attention to the periods of frost that your areas suffer. With this I recommend that depending on the area in which you live, choose a native species.

ornamental s

It is another option that we can take into account when choosing a tree for our orchard. In this case, the trees are not usually large and have highly colored flowers as well as broad-leaved foliage. Examples such as the cherry tree or the almond tree are chosen in many cases more for the ornamental than for the benefit of their fruit.

Privacy

Perhaps you notice that your garden is poorly protected and you would like to put a fence around it. Well, the best way is to use a tree. Trees such as evergreen cypresses or shrubs such as mulberry trees are often used to surround orchards.

Shade

Another good reason to put a tree in the orchard. After a good day of farming there is nothing like sitting under the shade of the top of our tree. In this case we could choose large trees such as oaks or eucalyptus.