What is your favorite tree and why?

That's like asking me to choose a favorite child!  But I'm awful fond of our shagbark hickories out here.  They're everywhere, they're sturdy, they have good wood that makes a good campfire, and they provide lots of food and shelter for our wildlife.

I agree, too many great trees! For beauty, I love redbuds, Kwanzan Cherries, any kind of maple, Chionanthus virginicus, oh goodness there are too many! (Just add in any fluffy-looking tree. I'm addicted to fluffy-looking-and-feeling plants).

And it sounds kind of shallow, but also like some trees just for how their scientific names sound. Chionanthus is one, as is Tilia tomentosa and Liriodendron tulipifera. They just roll off the tongue!

My favorite has got to be Tree of Heaven. Ha! Just kidding. That might be the only tree I hate.

I have to say Sugar Maple. The syrup, the beautiful finished wood, the fall colors, the strong branches for climbing, and the shape. When someone says tree I think of a maple tree, someone says leaf and I think of a maple leaf.

It's a horrible invasive and impossible to get rid of but I've got to give some love to Chinese privet. Evergreen, unkillable, and yields unlimited goat fodder year-round (they eat the leaves and the bark), attracts huge blackbird swarms, and the wood makes decent stakes for trellises and good firewood. The white flowers are nice. And it's an excellent fast growing privacy hedge.

Hated it initially but I appreciate it now.

As for favorite, I love moringa. Pretty, vigorous and delicious greens right off the branch. I only wish it was cold hardier.

I also like a variety of trees so on my suburban 3/4 acres I have many types of trees. Counted 12 peach trees yesterday. On the largest tree I have 29 fruits on one tree. In Mobile, Alabama, loquats are seen in many yards. They bloom in the late fall and early winter months, November and December. This is a unique characteristic of loquat trees, the fruit ripens in the late winter or early spring. I love picking them and popping the fruit in my mouth when outside working. They usually have two large seeds and it’s wise to not spit them out where you don’t want a tree. Unfortunately our 2024 winter wasn’t mild but some snow this year. No fruit but the chill hours beneficial for the peaches. I also love the Satsuma tree but not sure if this will be a fruitful year due to our lack of rain till this week(No April showers)So if Mother Nature doesn’t throw us a curve ball I can pick and eat fruit three times a year. I have other hardwood and softwood favorite trees but will save that for another day.

There are quite a few that are my favorites, but yes, chestnut trees, if they continue growing here, will be pretty close to the top. In France, they sell them on the west bank in Paris, and they are already dehydrated, so all you have to do is rehydrate them and add them to stuffing, desserts, cream of chestnuts, "marrons glacés" . They are pretty special.
I suspect the reason they are not done this way here is that they are most famous as "chestnuts roasting by the fire", and therefore, folks don't try to prepare them any other way.
But I don't like them that way, so I'll be trying to clean them up by boiling then peeling them, then dehydrating them. Dehydrated properly, they keep forever, or just about.
Otherwise, there is a small plum known as "Reine Claude": It is small, yellow, with a tiny stone inside, and they are soooo sweeet!. In my zone 4b, they might be at the very end of their Northern range, if not past it! I think you call them "green gage". If we warm up much more in Central Wisconsin, I'll try to plant some. I would love "mirabelles" which are plums in the same manner, yellow, quite small but extremely sweet. They won't make it north of zone 6, however.
My many mulberry trees/ bushes that I raised from seed are precious to me but the fruit seems to drop as soon as I look at it. It is delicious, however.
Otherwise, I will love any fruit tree.

My favorite tree is the Canadian maple. Simple because of the color of the leaves and I'm Canadian.
The next tree wood be the Dog wood. Because it smells good burning in the fireplaces.

Normand Jalette wrote:My favorite tree is the Canadian maple. Simple because of the color of the leaves and I'm Canadian.
The next tree wood be the Dog wood. Because it smells good burning in the fireplaces.

Welcome to permies, Normand.
It isn't just the color of the leaves in the fall but also the fact that the Canadian Maple, Acer saccharum, is the source of the most wonderful syrup on our pancakes.
I'm trying to grow more of them here, in Central Wisconsin. In the early spring, when the sap starts running and the tree "bleeds" I remember taking my kids near them, and lick the ambrosia that had almost dried running down the branch.
It became pretty much a family tradition to "go lick the maples".
Around here, our dogwoods have red stems, and they bring a cheerful note in the winter, against the snow. I don't know if the berries they make could be used. Does anyone know?

My favorite tree is one with low branches that a child can grab onto and pull themselves up, hang out in the hidden foliage and develop a lifetime love of trees. As a child, it was a cooking apple tree, but for my child, it was a hybrid tree surrounding our park near the apartment we kept in town for a while, and later, once he started at a climbing gym, a huge white pine on our land that's about 30" diameter that he built climbing aids out of scrap everything! I am so thankful for planning committees who think of these things when building parks in cities, so townies can develop a love of trees.
All trees are wonderful and we are so privileged to have them.
Now I'm old and going gray, any old trees are my favorites!

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
Around here, our dogwoods have red stems, and they bring a cheerful note in the winter, against the snow. I don't know if the berries they make could be used. Does anyone know?

Well, depends. The Kousa Dogwood has edible berries according to Eat The Weeds.. The American Dogweed fruit is not edible, the tree has medicinal properties. Pictures for identification are included in each link.

Mimosa, all 3 varieties; their little flighty feathery blossoms are so beautiful.

Julie Roberts wrote:Mimosa, all 3 varieties; their little flighty feathery blossoms are so beautiful.

Welcome to Permies, Julie. I lived in the south of France, near St. Tropez where the mimosa are a tourist attraction, and that one is yellow:
https://www.couleurnature.com/blogs/news/la-route-du-mimosa#:~:text=Even%20if%20your%20trip%20allows,with%20sunny%20vibrance%20all%20winter.
Now, living in Central Wisconsin, which is much too cold to grow these delightful bushes/ trees, I have a lot of nostalgia thinking about these beautiful yellow blossoms, and the fragrance was so delicate, but heady at the same time. Thanks for reminding me.
I must say that after you mentioned it but didn't put a picture to it, I felt such nostalgia that I googled "Mimosa Wiki". It turns out that south of here, they are purple and resemble nothing like what I knew then.
I just had to look up the song by Aznavour: "Non, je n' ai rien oublié".
I'm adding the song here for the Francophiles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNUV-70MZL8

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
Around here, our dogwoods have red stems, and they bring a cheerful note in the winter, against the snow.

I've wondered what those red stems were: I do enjoy looking at them growing near the roadside

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:
The Kousa Dogwood has edible berries according to Eat The Weeds.. .

For those in Canada, whiffletree in Elora Ontario
has started stocking this Japanese dogwood
3-6 ft self fertile