Looking for free tree advice

I am advising my son on which tree to plant in his small back yard. Zone 5, high desert, full sun, e-z care. Bend, Oregon. A local nursery is selling the following ' baby trees' @ 3 for $25.00: flowering crabapple, plum and locust. He will plant 1 tree and give the others to friends. So you advise me and I advise him and he will think his mama is soooo smart!! thank you.

Well, I have both a crabapple and a plum tree. My crabapple grew much, much faster than my plum tree. With a crabapple you can leave it as a vertical bush or trim it to grow as a tree. I currently have 5 crabapples planted in my yard and one plum tree.

Carol

I would go to the Arbor Foundation website and they will have a "tree wizard" program that will tell you which one is best. I know the locust are pretty hardy. I am trying to location one for my yard currently.

I'd go for something locally adapted. Having been to Bend, the two healthiest local native trees there are Ponderosa Pine and Western Juniper. Didn't see a lot else, in fact!

Resin

the nursery selling the trees is in Bend! I would never try to grow anything there that is not locally adapted. The nursery says they have had 17 yrs of growing those types of trees in Bend.

The nursery being in the area doesn't necessarily mean anything, plenty of nurseries sell things that won't necessarily do that well in the long term (or sometimes even the short term!) in the climate they're in. Some nurseries are obviously better than others though so if this is one that you trust, then I'd just have him pick the tree he likes the best and put that in his yard, then give the other two away. Or you might talk to them about the specific area that he's going to be planting them and the desire for no maintenance and see if they would recommend one of the trees over the others for that particular situation.

Ladysaltfire, do your flowering crabapple trees have fruit? We use to have one and the fruit attracted tons of bees. I was hoping the flowering cr.apple did not. and I just read where the seeds or part of the locusts tree are poison so that is out as they have a small child.

I think you'll need to ask the nursery about your particular variety--some of them have fruit and some don't (or if they do have fruit, they don't have nearly as much). My parents had one when I was growing up that did have lots of fruit and it was very messy (I don't remember bees though, and I've always been afraid of bees so if there'd been a lot I would have remembered them!) But the crabapple at my old house would only get some occasional very small fruit on it . Bees are still going to be around when it's blooming, but at least you won't get the yellow jackets going after the fruit which is what I think you may be worried about?

yep, every year the yellow jacket and little bare feet.

Supprisingly, my crabapples only flower. They do not produce any fruit. I thought I had purchased a flowering-fruit bearing tree. But, that's ok. They still make a very nice addition to my yard. They are among three of my healthiest trees and the only flying creatures that like them are a mocking bird and my hummers. The other trees that are doing exceptionally well in my yard, is my Red Maple and my Tea Olives.

Carol