Everyone loves the landscaper's pictures of beautiful shade trees framing a house, lining the streets. You can buy a home like that, maybe. Or you can start out with a blank slate, perhaps the home you're in now, and make it like that. Large trees or small, landscapers have a vested interest in doing it the best way. You can watch and learn or read it here.
Landscaper Secret 1: In the long, or even short, run, size doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
Along the Texas Gulf Coast, in my family's nursery and landscape experience from the 1920's on, there is not an appreciable difference in the size or quality of the trees five years later from a tree you can handle yourself.
Why is that? This landscaper's secret has a lot to with what a truly mature tree is. Most shade trees aren't really mature until they're 20 years old. What people think of as mature is a 15 or 20 foot tree with a nice, sturdy trunk. That's about five years of water and fertilizer supported growth.
Because of the massive root systems required to maintain truly mature trees, transplanting them is pretty much out of the question. For example, some of the really large oaks have been known to send out feeder roots for a half-mile in diameter. You probably don't have that much space anyway. So, you really don't want a tree that massive.
Buy a smaller tree, take care of it, enjoy it, and in about five years it will reach that lovely size you're thinking of. In twenty years, it will grow naturally (with a little help from you or your landscaper) to a fully mature tree, enhancing the neighborhood as well as your home.
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