growth of trees

Can anyone help? A friend of mine e-mailed me this afternoon to ask if I knew of any book or website where she could get the information she needed about trees, which is the height they are likely to be in 5 years.

I found places which give a 10 year height and spread, but haven't found a 5 year one. I suggested halving the 10 year one, but she'd rather have info she can quote for her project!!

 

Sorry can't help with that one. A search revealed only 10 or 15 year heights. Prolly cos people want to know if height will be a problem.

 

I have the 1983 Dr Hessayon "The Tree and Shrub Expert". Could that be of help?

Also, my Aussie book has useful info. Anything in particular your friend is interested in?

 

Thanks for trying, Fran, much appreciated. That's all I could come up with.

LoL - the expert book was one of the places I found the 10 year info. Your Aussie book might well be useful! At the mo it's just one tree, the Betula pendula 'Youngii'. She's doing a design course, and spread and growth over 5 years is required info! So she'll need a real source of the info for a whole range of trees. She's contacted the course administrators (it's a distance learning thing) to ask for a book list!

Many thanks for your help, and any further info will be apprecated :D

 

Dendro, the only extra info in the Aussie book says ...

"Their fast early growth, yet fairly modest final height, are added advantages for use in gardens and streets." It also says that the "Youngii" with growth like a weeping willow and no leading shoot, requires it to be grafted on a standard.

 

Some suppliers will give heights of plants for sale at say 2 year old and a rate of expected growth. Maybe she could extrapolate.

It's problematic though. In a forrest a tree sedling can survive in a semi dwarf state under the main canopy and will then shoot up very quickly if there's an opening due an older tree falling.

 

All very helpful, thanks!! You're quite right, Froggy - the best thing is likely to be to look at the projected growth that's given, whether on labels or in books, etc, and, as you say, extrapolate. That's likely to be close enough for the purpose.

When you're designing something, I would have thought you would normally not have much problem with overhanging stuff - generally your tree in question is going to be the highest thing..... so that should minimise that particular problem.

If my friend gets a helpful answer from the course administrators, I'll pass on the info - so watch this space....

 

Administrators might care to consider the age of the tree at planting! It is frankly no help to man or beast to know how high a tree will be in 5 years without knowing its location, age, soil type, and health. We can't expect design students to be experienced enough to cope with this though so why not say 3m or 2.8m? Just don't say where from...

 

Quite agree J! :D

 

Just heard from my friend :-

I had a reply from the course administrators regarding the five year size of plants, and they actually told me to halve the size at ten years. Like they said, it cannot be more than an estimate, since it depends on where it's grown etc. At the same time I got an answer to a question I didn't ask, but always wondered about: Why are all the sizes in the RHS Plants and Flowers so big compared to most other books and websites? It's apparently because they work out the size of a plant which is never pruned and grown in the most favourable situation.

So there you are - what we said all along.....