In the tropics, these plants generally have evolved a deciduous habit to cope with a dry season. It's hard to protect broad, thin leaf tissue from extreme cold, and so trees and shrubs shed them ...

They are also typically darker green than deciduous trees - darker colors absorb more light from the sun. Their thin, needle-shaped leaves help prevent water loss by minimizing surface area.

That said, all of the deciduous trees came in next at doing so – this is likely because their broad leaves present more particle-trapping surface area than the thin needles of spruce, fir and ...

Q: I want to plant a disease-resistant, narrow and upright tree that will be planted nine feet from my townhouse patio. Can you suggest any varieties? A: A variety of Southern magnolia named Alta ...

Leaves of deciduous trees somehow seem to be better for composting than those of some of the evergreen trees. Anyone with a Southern magnolia knows how slow the foliage is to decompose.

While tamaracks range as far south as New Jersey, these really are trees of the far north, of poor, thin, acidic soils and harsh winters. We live in the biome just south of the northern boreal forest.

We also have the deciduous trees that grow here: Thin-leaf Alder, Aspen, Waxleaf and Narrowleaf Cottonwood, and Balsam and White Poplars. This gives us a total palette of 16 trees to work with in ...

Pruning to thin the canopy can allow wind to flow through the tree. Deciduous trees are easier to prune during the winter, for obvious reasons. Citrus can be pruned after harvesting.

The needles on evergreen trees aren’t immortal, though; they do turn brown and fall off. Deciduous trees lose their leaves all at once. Evergreens will lose their “leaves” (aka needles) a ...