Moon Valley Nursery - Arizona Blog

Plant Now for Summer Shade

Written by Felipe Benavides | 1/4/2018

 

A New Year with a New Yard and Shade!

 

Planting trees for the new year can mean that you can have that cooling shade coverage in time for what is sure to be another bright and hot summer. After all, with average summertime temperatures hovering at 100 degrees in Arizona and Las Vegas and plenty of warm days in SoCal, being able to find respite in the heat is welcome no matter where you live. So plant some shade trees now and enjoy your yard for summertime backyard barbecues, parties, and relaxation!

Deciduous or evergreen, both kinds of trees will provide the shade coverage you want. Of course, evergreens such as Live Oak provide shade all year long, while deciduous, such as Jacaranda, drop their leaves in fall so that it can allow the sun to pierce through in the winter. No matter which type of tree you decide on, planting them now is your best bet for summertime shade.

 

Benefits of Planting Trees in January

Yes, you can plant in winter, and this can be an excellent time to plant the trees to provide shade and other benefits such as privacy and windbreak features.

  • Newly planted trees will spend the winter months establishing their root system before spring growth.
  • Thanks to our mild winter climate, soil can retain warmth even when the temperatures outside start to dip.

A Well-Planned Landscape


With the new year upon us, this is the perfect time to create a new yard! With a well-planned landscape, you can do more than provide summer shade outdoors. Carefully positioned trees can also help cool your home so that they might be able to reduce the household’s energy consumption – possibly saving money too! And when planted together, they can even be used as a windbreak that may be able to deflect or lift the wind over your home.

Moon Valley Nurseries makes it easy to have a carefully-planned new yard for the new year! We have the perfect trees available in the sizes you want to create an instant landscape. Our professional landscape design services are available for free at any of our nurseries, and for a small fee, we can come to your site, so all you have to do is handpick the trees you want!

 

Summer Shade: These Are Excellent Trees to Plant Now!

 

Tipu (Tipuana tipu) – Plant a Tipu tree in your landscape and get ready to bask in the wonderful shade coverage, no matter how sunny it is outside! Yep, Tipuana tipu trees may very well be one of the best shade trees you can find. These trees are colorful too, putting on a unique show of golden blooms from late spring into early summer. Specimen trees work as a natural umbrella so that they can create a cool, shady spot to picnic under and enjoy its feathery, bright bluish-green foliage.

 

 

Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) – This mighty oak tree is a family favorite, especially specimen size trees with dense, gray/green foliage and a wide spreading crown that casts the right amount of shade. These evergreens are ideally suited for lawns where they are sure to add curb appeal and when carefully installed around the home, might be able to help lower temperatures inside the house. In addition to being fantastic summer shade providers, they are also drought tolerant and can live for many years so that they can be appreciated by generations to come.

 

 

Arizona Ash (Fraxinus velutina) – This deciduous has attractive, velvety gray-green leaves and can cast a wide umbrella of shade in the summer, and when it drops its leaves in winter, it lets in the warmth of the sun! These trees love the sun and are cold hardy and heat resistant so that they are ideal for growing in our local climate. If you’re looking for a fast-growing shade tree, you’ll love Fraxinus velutina. We like to use them in residential, commercial, and lawn applications.

 

Chinese Pistache (Pistacia chinensis) – Here’s another incredible deciduous shade tree that lets in the sun in the winter and offers a clean, dark-green umbrella-shaped canopy that can block the sun when you need it to! Before it drops its leaves, it can add beautiful fall color when the leaves turn from luminous orange to red and sometimes yellow. We like to plant them in rows where they can act as a natural privacy screen, and they are also an ideal tree for flanking driveways.

 

 

Brazilian Pepper (Schinus terebinthifolius) – These cold hardy evergreen trees bring year-round beauty to landscapes! These are attractive shade trees offering a dark green, dense, umbrella-shaped canopy that provides a picturesque shady spot to rest under or have a family picnic. We also like to use them as a natural privacy screen where they can block unwanted views in style. Brazilian Pepper trees are drought tolerant too, so anyone looking for a water-wise tree is sure to appreciate these colorful specimens.

 

#FreePlanting On All Specimen Trees!

Yes, you read that right, with free planting available on all specimen trees, it cannot get any easier to have the perfect summer shade trees in your landscape! Don’t let the blistering sun keep you from enjoying your yard. Allow our professional planting crew to plant trees now so that you can have the shade coverage you want in the summer!