Benefits of Planting Flowering Tree on Your Homestead
Homesteaders often have a utilitarian way of thinking and anything that is on the homestead must earn its’ keep. Flowering trees might get overlooked and not deemed as useful for a homestead as hardwood trees.
Beautification might be the initial reason for planting flowering trees on the homestead but there are several other benefits besides just being pretty that these needful trees provide. Select a few flowering trees that grow well in your climate, then sit back and enjoy some of these many benefits for years to come.
Boost Your Mood
A spring-flowering tree will boost your mood and give renewed hope after a long, cold winter. Those first spring blooms on fruit trees, Tulip trees, Dogwood trees, and other spring-flowering trees are a reminder that spring is just around the corner and new life is beginning.
Some people are afflicted with SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, and the dark, dreary days of winter are a difficult time for them and the bright, colorful tree blooms can give them a much- needed mood-boost.
Beauty and Function
Time, energy, and space will dictate what is grown on the homestead and flowering trees provide many things in just one growing space.
A flowering tree will break up the utilitarian look of a homestead and add a touch of beauty to the landscape. The cold, hard functional necessities of a homestead can be softened in appearance with a flowering tree. It will give warmth, color, and the feeling of home to a landscape that is often covered with farm equipment and livestock.
Food and Fall Foliage
Some flowering trees, like apples and pears, produce food. Fruit trees can be pruned and espalier against a structure. The trees will take up minimal outdoor space while they happily produce flowers and fruit for the homestead.
Fruit trees can also be planted and pruned for use as a living fence. You can get flowers, fragrance, food, fall foliage, attract pollinators, and create an attractive utilitarian fence for your homestead with fruit trees.
Attract Pollinators
A homestead needs pollinators to enable the garden to produce better. Spring flowering trees will attract the early pollinators and so they can get your vegetable garden off to a good start.
Bees, butterflies, and birds will stop by to gorge on the pollen produced by the blooms. Flowering trees can help you get a honey bee colony started on your homestead too.
Worry-Free Shade
A flowering tree will provide attractive shade to a landscape. Most flowering trees do not grow to be very tall so they make excellent trees for planting near the house or homestead other structures.
The shorter-growing trees will provide shade without the threat of major destruction in case stormy weather should uproot the tree.
Fewer leaves on the smaller-growing trees also mean less work in the fall when the leaves drop from the trees.
Reduce Energy Use
Shorter-growing flowering trees can be strategically planted for use as a wind block around the homestead. A wind block will help reduce the amount of energy need for heating and cooling.
The shade in summer will keep the homestead cooler and the deciduous nature of the trees will allow the sun to shine in during the winter months to reduce energy usage for heating.
Turn a House into a Home
Flowering trees not only benefit you, beautify the landscape, reduce energy usage, provide food, attract pollinators, but they will also make a house look like a home.
There are many benefits of planting flowering trees and many beautiful flowering trees to choose from. Whichever one(s) you choose to plant, dig the planting hole twice wide and twice as deep as the tree roots, add 4-inches of organic matter to the hole, then plant the tree. Keep the soil moist and mulched for tree health and longevity.
