I'll start with calgary pear. They often have a weak crotch and in ice storms are prone to splintering and breakage. Drastically overplanted street tree in N.E.

I'll start with calgary pear. They often have a weak crotch and in ice storms are prone to splintering and breakage. Drastically overplanted street tree in N.E.

Japanese Black Pine and Austrian Pine in Southeastern Massachusetts. Everyone recommends them because they are very salt tolerant so in theory should be perfect for places that get salt spray from the ocean during hurricanes and from road salt in the winter...but turpentine beetles and a fungus and nematode spread by insects mean they don't survive very well in southeastern Massachusetts unless you douse them in pesticides regularly. An American Elm would be far easier to keep alive near Cape Cod then a Japanese Black Pine.

I've heard some say Blue Spruce don't survive the New England humidity well...not sure if I buy that, I've seen plenty of happy looking ones in southeastern Massachusetts. On the other hand, during a recent trip to central New Hampshire I saw a lot of Blue Spruce that looked kind of sad...especially in contrast to the vigorous White Pines that self-sowed nearby.

Some of the trees others mentioned are trees that sort of suck everywhere.

Never noticed any problems with Dwarf Alberta Spruce or Arborvitae in my area. Do full sized White Spruce suffer from these problems?

This post was edited by edlincoln on Mon, Aug 18, 14 at 22:01

Silver maple is a tree that needs care in placement. While I would not say that they "don't work in New England" I would say that they don't work in a typical suburban quarter acre lot. They grow too fast and get too large for small yards, and they are often damaged by ice storms. They are fine if you have acres and they aren't near buildings, but not great otherwise. Other trees that also don't work in smaller settings include large willows (roots will invade any leaking pipes and create problems sooner as well as storm damage) and suckering trees such as aspen or black locust which will invade neighboring properties, gardens, etc.

IME Blue spruce are fine in central NH as long as they don't get bud damage from some type of borer which causes multiple leaders.

hemlocks d/t wooly aegelid. Ignorant landscape installers still plant these in new installations. On our street I saw four planted and four decline over a period of three years. that's not a good return on investment. They were pulled, and replaced....with hemlocks. Maybe a spray maintenance plan came with the trees!

New England is a pretty wide swath. Big zonal differences, humidity varies, some of us get hurricanes and others get blizzards and the really unfortunate get both. But what beautiful, varied country!

So we'll be reading lots of "that tree does all right here" in this thread. That's fine; it's all interesting and I like learning about what works where. Thanks for posing the question.

Sadly the American Elm stand that my neighborhood resides under is succumbing to those damned winter moth caterpillars. It's as if the epicenter is my backyard--I'll find caterpillars around my body, clothing, bags, etc for days after being under the elm trees.

The Dutch elm disease took a few of the elm trees in the past decade or two but I think the winter moth caterpillars will have the entire neighborhood within a few years. :(

Here is a link that might be useful: umass extension on winter moth caterpillars

I think "New England" is way too big an area to answer this question. A tree that doesn't do well in southern-most New England might be very happy in Maine. One example would be white birch in far southern-most New England. I have never seen one last more than a few years. Also, black spruce---native to areas in northern New England. Every single one looks like crap here (south coast of Mass)---dead or dying.

White birch doesn't work in southern New England? See, that's exactly the sort of thing I wanted to know. Does that include Southeastern Mass? What is a good substitute? What about white spruce?

This post was edited by edlincoln on Tue, Sep 2, 14 at 0:08

I think I can safely say tropical trees probably don't do well outside in New England....like breadfruit, brazil nuts, etc.

Whatever is the point of this vague (as pointed out earlier by the broadness of it) topic?

The point is to find out common trees that I might see for sale at Home Depot don't do well in the area. As I said, it's easy to find information on trees that don't do well because they aren't cold hardy, zone tolerances are easy to find. Finding out if a tree doesn't do well here because of humidity or local pests is much harder. I've already discovered from this thread White Birch doesn't do well here...useful, because I'd been considering them, the neighbors just planted some, and the zone tolerance didn't give me a "heads up" on that one. I also discovered black spruce aren't a good choice here, and got further confirmation that hemlock would be a bad choice.

White birch is highly susceptible to the bronze birch borer. While this insect can and does attack white birch trees further north, it seems to be more of a problem in far southern New England (including SE MA) where this tree is already at the southern most limit of its natural range. Any stress to the tree (brought on by drought and high soil temps for example) makes the tree more susceptible to attack. So in my experience newly planted trees do OK for a few years and then rapidly decline unless the tree is aggressively treated. Probably not the best choice. You could try planting river birch instead--of all birch species it is the least prone to being attacked by this borer.

I'll second Rockman's suggestion of river birch, Betula nigra. My workplace is in zone 6, and there are at least two selections of river birch that do well there. One is Heritage ('Cully') and the other has white bark and looks fairly similar to white birch, Betula papyrifera, though I don't know the selection name.

Silver Maples, I can attest to, need to be placed with care and in our neighborhood of 1/4 acre lots there are quite a few and they are a headache. The root system becomes a large issue for growing much of anything in their vicinity. They suck up water and the root system travels too far. They also lose branches in ice storms.

Winter Moths are taking a toll on all the Maple trees in the neighborhood. I wouldnâÂÂt be surprised if they are not going to make it one of these years. I saw a large dead branch in one of our trees this spring.

There is one tree in our neighborhood, that is either a London Plane Tree or a Sycamore. I donâÂÂt know if it has a disease or not. Sometimes it takes a really long time to push out new leaves. And the very large leaves do not break down easily and brown dead leaves fall during the spring and summer instead of in the fall. It never looks healthy either. Too large a tree for small lots too.

What about shrubs? One that comes to mind, is Viburnum âÂÂRed WingsâÂÂ. I love this shrub. Really fast growth and ability to screen. Pretty foliage and lots of berries. But wow, do the branches break over the winter. IâÂÂm still growing it and deciding if it works for me or not. Because despite having to cut it back after two winters and especially by more than half after that freak October Ice Storm, it rebounded to twice the size since then and didnâÂÂt lose a lot of branches last winter.