Thanks for the info and links....

Your're correct about the temperature.... instead of -20 it was
-10 BELOW zero actual temperature including wind chill factor.
(Columbia is about 20 miles north of D.C.)

That was this past January / February 2003.... I remember getting
a lot of calls warning me about the freeze and spending a few hours
freezing my buns off trying to cover plants that had not been mulched
for the winter. This included a dozen or so newly planted protected
carmellia's hardy to 20 degrees. Darned that night was cold.

Matter of fact, the next few days were also frigid.
The carmellia's didn't survive, pulled them up, put them in
storage and some are beginning to get leaves again.

I did get a chance to look at some magnolia's.... for some strange
reason I thought they were canopied tree's....(wonder where that idea
came from).

Still open to some suggestions about small canopied evergreen tree's.
The plan for the center circle includes two park benchs that we'd
like to shade...
(all we need is a concrete checkers board to complete the image !!)

Thanks again for the help...already found a few magnolia's for the
backyard !!!



On Thu, 17 Jul 2003 10:24:33 GMT, Frogleg wrote:

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 21:27:10 -0400, Peter wrote:


Location is in Maryland, right between Baltimore and Washington,
D.C.. we are officially in a zone 7a but because of the urban city
heat, the USDA has also described this area as being zone 8.

Kinda crazy weather.... can be 110 degrees in the summer months and
drop down to -20 degrees below zero during the winter.

I don't think so. What you probably mean is that it gets as low as 20F
in winter; that is, 12 degrees below freezing. USDA zone 8's 'bottom'
temperatures are 10-20F; zone 7's are 0-10F. The all-time record low
temperature for DC is around -5F.

What tree's would be evergreen, grow about 30' high with
a 20' spread, forming a canopy. I was considering a
magnolia.. but am open to suggestions.

Are any of the magnolia family evergreen and somewhat smallish???
Are they quick growers??

A brief Google shows many varieties of Magnolia that might suit your
purposes. Magnolias produce deep shade, so that would influence your
choise of 'underplantings.'

This site has several detailed descriptions, 'though I wouldn't think
it were comprehensive.

http://www.sleepyhollownursery.com/descriptions/mo.htm