Fastest growing trees in USDA Zone 5?

[Bill Case]

Hi, What are the fastest growing trees in USDA Zone 5 (Amer. Horticultural Zone

8)? I'm interested in both evergreens and broadleaves.

Thanks

[Kenneth]

Hi Bill,

You are further south, but we put in a bunch of hybrid poplars as 4' whips in S.E. New Hampshire and they grew at an extraordinary rate. We had researched the most rapid growth for our area.

They don't live more than about fifteen years, but I would certainly use them again were we to need some rapid growth.

We got them from Burpee originally, but I believe that they no longer offer such.

All the best,

[paghat]

Bare in mind that the fastest growing trees are also the weakest trees, so you don't want to plant them where they will someday blow down & mash the house. There are poplars & willows that'd be huge within a single decade, but in fifteen years could be big enough to destroy the house come a moderately high wind. Trees that grow slower are less prone to snapping in a high wind. Trees that grow more slowly & have taproots are not likely to snap in two in a high wind nor uproot & tip over the way douglas firs do but cedars don't.

Pacific Red Elderberry grows to fifteen feet in one or two years & will keep growing to twenty or so, a giant shrub or a small tree. Other elderberry species also have rapid growth if they are from wild stock; cultivars grow more slowly. Our red elderberry has the most beautiful wortled bark. The trunks remain smallish; the wood is extremely hard, but hollow so not heavy, so if it breaks in high wind it won't damage anything where it falls. If it were ever necessary to cut it down, it would grow back from the root. Most elderberries thrive all the way down to zone 4 or

-paghat the ratgirl

[Greg Miller]

Chinese Elm, Tree of Heaven, Manitoba Maple, yep the weed trees (though the rusty autumn flowers on Ailanthus aren't bad)