Plants for Shade

[Aunt Angus]

I really, really did read a bunch of other posts for answers before posting this, but nothing seems to quite fit my situation.

I am building a near-chicken utopia on my property. They'll have about 1000 sq ft of chicken pasture in an area we cleared in our woods. But because it's been cleared, there are no shade trees for them, and it gets very hot here in the summer. The pasture will be covered with heavy-duty bird netting (because hawks).

I need to add shade, so I'm planning on adding shrubs and shade cloth in some areas, but I'd like small trees that can create a canopy if sorts as well as visual interest. But since the area will be covered, I need something that will stay relatively short - like 4-5 feet tall.

I thought about butterfly bush, but the ones I have now are about 8 ft tall and need constant cutting back. I'd prefer something a little lower maintenance, if at all possible. I'm leaning Mexican sage, but those can get tall, too. And something broad-leafed would be ideal. There's gotta be something out there. I'm just drawing blanks right now...

Any ideas? We're in hardiness zone 9a.

TIA

 

[raingarden]

Mulberry. Broadleaf. They don't get too tall and chickens love the fruit. You can even use the leaves to feed silk worms

 

[B-Goock]

I've got juniper, Beauty berry, hostas, butterfly bush, some other kind berry bush, & some blueberry. To keep the chickens from killing them I placed flat rocks around the base

 

[3KillerBs]

Dwarf bananas?

I don't know much about planting for your zone, but until you do get your plants grown up you could put up some cheap picnic pavilions. End of season sales should be coming up soon what with the tendency of stores to start stocking up fall and winter things in mid summer.

 

[CluckerFamily]

Apple trees would give you shade and dwarf apple trees will stay shorter.

 

[3KillerBs]

Apple trees would give you shade and dwarf apple trees will stay shorter.

Apples would be very tricky in zone 9a. I'm at the 7b/8a border and have to be very careful about choice of variety this far south.

 

[CluckerFamily]

Apples would be very tricky in zone 9a. I'm at the 7b/8a border and have to be very careful about choice of variety this far south.

These Apple trees are for zone 9:
Anna, Dorsett Golden, and Tropic Sweet.

 

[Mmanist]

Redbud trees are all over ohio. My chickens seem to really enjoy, it sets in my center run and covers some of my other 2 runs. They are small and slow growing trees

 

[Acre4Me]

While I didn’t have much experience in your zone, we did use a book we bought to choose 2 trees for our property. The book did shrubs snd trees for this area (not sure if it was Ohio specific), but it was extremely helpful bc one needed to be wind tolerant-really wind tolerant. The other needed to not have a huge root spread, and be on the larger side, etc (a few other site specifics). This book gave very good info on height, roots, spread, etc. also listed what trees/shrubs worked well in certain conditions (like wind, or heavy deer population etc). It was worth the cost to have in our hands and mull over options.

I’m sure you could begin with your library -they will have a section on plants/shrubs/gardens/landscape.

we chose Serviceberry for one location -I like serviceberry bc it has an attractive look all year-more of a bushy tree, but with small leaves. Not sure if that would do well in your zone. Can’t remember the other tree -but it’s a slower grower.

 

[3KillerBs]

Dwarf bananas:

https://www.willisorchards.com/product/pineapple-banana-plant

https://www.willisorchards.com/product/dwarf-cavendish-banana-plant

https://www.willisorchards.com/product/raja-puri-banana-plant

https://www.willisorchards.com/product/pink-banana-plant

I know that banana leaves are safe for human consumption because I had a Dominican coworker who made a tamale-like dish that was wrapped in banana leaves for cooking.