Why are trees described by "spacing"?

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bflanger Verden, Germany(Zone 7b) Nov 29, 2006

Maybe this is a silly question. But to us as not-native-speakers it seems that "spacing" describes how far trees of a kind should be planted apart from each other. But it doesnīt tell how big they get, isnīt it? In timberforest spacing of the same species would be less than in fruitproduction, where insolation is needed in the crown.
Or is "spacing" used similar to "width"?

greetings from Germany

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ViburnumValley Scott County, KY(Zone 5b) Nov 29, 2006

Welcome to DG! I get to visit Germany rather regularly; what part of the country are you from?

Yes, one of the difficulties in creating a database like PlantFiles is trying to use one common list to describe plants of all categories from around the world. An admin might correct me, but I believe the original setup was meant to serve mostly herbaceous plants and it fits only fairly well to woody plants (trees/shrubs/vines).

The spacing category relates well to planting daylilies and hostas, but not so much to trees. I would venture to say that you are as close as anyone to making the right assumption. Most people (at least I do) who enter data for tree or shrub species probably assume spacing means average width that the plant grows to.

One of the ways to supplement the list of information is to post your experience with a plant. Here, one can put information that doesn't fit neatly into one of the categories pre-provided.

Hope you enjoy the forums! Bring your tree questions over to Trees & Shrubs, and join the fray.

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Farmerdill Augusta, GA(Zone 8a) Nov 29, 2006

I usually interpret it as spacing as in planting an orchard. That would not apply to specimin trees as is often the use in landscaping. Any thing that I enter, spacing will be the recommendation for mass planting, whether it be an apple orchard, pecan orchard, or pine forest.

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