Weeping beech
* Common name: Weeping beech
A mature weeping beech at Hershey Gardens drapes over an arbor.
* Botanical name: Fagus sylvatica ‘Pendula’
* What it is: A slow-growing tree with a striking drooping habit and yellow-gold fall foliage. Purple-leafed forms also are available as well as dwarf versions.
* Size: Full-sized types can grow 50 to 60 feet tall and wide. Dwarf purple-leaf types such as ‘Purple Fountain’ are even slower-growing than the species, reaching about 20 feet tall and 8 to 10 feet wide in 25 years.
* Where to use: One of the best specimen trees for “starring roles” in the front yard and other high-profile locations. Does best in full sun.
* Care: Fertilizer usually not needed. Just keep the roots consistently damp (but never soggy) the first two to three seasons, then water not needed except in drought. Overly long, looping, or misdirected limbs can be shortened or removed at end of each winter to help shape the tree in its early years.
* Great partner: Golden creeping sedum is an ideal groundcover. Black-eyed susans and coreopsis are good perennial partners. And low, spreading, gold-needled junipers, such as ‘Lime Glow’ and ‘Golden Carpet,’ are good shrubby partners.