The Best Small Trees

Paperbark maple (Acer griseum)

• 20-30 feet high and 15-30 feet wide
• Zones 4-8

If it weren't so difficult to propagate, this handsome tree would be more widely seen. Sienna to red-brown bark that begins exfoliating in its second year and medium- fine branching give a rich delicacy to the winter landscape. Each leaf is really three leaflets, flat green to blue-green in summer, sometimes intense red in fall. Adapts to a wide range of soil but prefers a site that is well-drained and moist.

Weeping Higan cherry (Prunus subhirtella 'Pendula')

• 20-40 feet high and wide
• Zones 4-8

The sight of a cherry tree in bloom can help you forget winter, but pick the variety carefully. Diseases and insects have caused many an early demise. The indomitable Sargent cherry (Prunus sargentii) (Zones 4-7) reaches 20 to 30 feet high and wide, bearing clusters of 1-1/2-inch pink flowers, and later, purplish-black fruit. Leaves open reddish, become shiny dark green, then turn maroon in fall. The weeping Higan cherry may have pink or white blooms; to be certain of color, buy the tree when it is in bloom. In colder climes (Zones 2-6) try the Amur chokeberry (P. maackii), which grows 35 to 45 feet high and wide and produces its frothy white flowers after the leaves appear. Fruit is red, turning black in late summer. Its glossy red-brown bark looks stunning in the snow.

• 25-35 feet high, 15-25 feet wide
• Zones 5-8 (9)

Excellent small-lawn tree. A rounded, tidy canopy, three-lobed leaves that turn yellow, orange and red in fall and exfoliating, multi-colored bark. New leaves open bronzy to purple in spring, maturing to glossy, dark green. Usually pest-free. Check out variegated forms.

• 30-50 feet high, 40-55 feet wide
• Zones 4-8

Not a small tree, but no giant either. Panicles of fragrant, white flowers in late spring and bright green foliage that turns yellow in fall. A pink-flowered form, 'Rosea,' is also available.

Japanese snowbell (Styrax japonicus)

• 20-30 feet high and wide
• Zones 5-8

Park yourself on a bench beneath this beauty in late spring and early summer, and gaze up at the white bell-shaped flowers that hang below the branches. The tree has pest-free, medium to dark green, 1-1/2- to 3-inch leaves and smooth gray- brown bark that develops orangeish fissures. The fragrant snowbell (S. obassia ), named for its scented white-flower clusters, has a coarser foliage texture with mature leaves that can reach eight inches long. This tree usually stays in bounds but occasionally grows taller, becoming open and rounded as its matures. Give snowbells moist, acid, well-drained soil.

• 25-30 feet high with equal or greater spread
• Zones 4-8

Although the evodia may exceed its parameters under ideal landscape conditions, its advantages are tolerance of most soil types and speedy growth--gaining several feet per year, especially when young. In midsummer, creamy flowers provide plenty of bee nectar. Compound leaves are lustrous dark green and unusually clean all season. In late summer, red fruit capsules become showy, later splitting to reveal shiny black seeds. Its muscly and smooth gray bark lends strong architectural components year-round.

Photographs by Michael A. Dirr and Marie Hofer