A Tree Grows In South Minneapolis

I'm very pleased to introduce Amelanchier x grandiflora "Autumn Brilliance," also known as Serviceberry, Juneberry, Saskatoon and -- in New England -- Shadblow.

While we have two lovely mature trees on our lot (a birch and a pine), the veranda gets a heck of a lot of sun late in the day. For several years, we've been discussing how a small tree would help block some of that glare and soften the look of the back of the house -- which can be downright blinding in the afternoon sun. But which tree?

Well, before I started gardening last spring, I bought Landscaping with Native Plants of Minnesota, a fantastic book by Lynn Steiner. We hoped it would help us make smarter choices when it came time to do something with the yard, and it definitely did. I scoured it until I found what I believed to be the perfect tree, at least for us. Why?

• The Amelanchier is native to Minnesota, and there's a whole host of reasons that native flora is better for the environment and for gardening success.
• It's a great size: they rarely get bigger than 25 feet.
• The foliage is very airy, so it doesn't create a bunch of deep shade (which would seriously hurt my gardening efforts). Rather, it filters the light.
• It's the apotheosis of a four-season tree, as evidenced by the photos below of full-grown specimens. It has lovely white flowers in spring, berries that the birds love (which means the birds will eat them before they can mess up our backyard) in summer, firey red foliage in fall, and beautiful gray bark to look at once the leaves have fallen in winter.
  

So when M sent me a link to subsidized tree program at treetrust.org, I was thrilled to see that the Amelanchier was among the choices . We ordered the tree a few months ago, picked it up last night (when M encountered some kinks in TreeTrust's processes, but whatever), and took turns doing the digging to plant it.

A note about selecting the tree: We arrived at the pick-up location about two minutes before they closed (again, because of the kinks in the process), so they were already shutting down for the night. This meant that, instead of the trees all lined up in tidy rows (helpful for selecting the exact tree one wants), they were all grouped together in such a way that you couldn't distinguish the foliage of one tree from that of another. When I was told, "Pick any tree you want!" I couldn't really tell where one ended and the next begin, so I made the best guess I could and we brought our new addition home.

It wasn't until we got it in the ground that M said, "It looks a little, um ... disabled. Way to pick it, honey." Okay, maybe it tilts a little to one side, and it has a few yellow leaves (either overfertilized or underwatered, no permanent damage done), but seriously, I couldn't tell that any of them looked any different! My immediate response to M was: "Don't say mean things about our tree; you'll hurt its feelings." Of course, this only fueled the fire. M has now announced that clearly I was fated to have this exact tree, because it needs my love and attention, because, yes, it's "disabled."

Somehow, that concept seems really familiar.