If you want to add maturity to your newly built house, and make it look as if it's been there for a very long time, there's nothing like getting a big tree or two and planting them around your home. Big trees have had a few years start in a nursery, with a controlled environment, so you know they will be strong and healthy. A professional nursery will dig up their big trees ready for transport, just a couple of days before shipment This ensures freshness and the health of the tree.
Of course, there are so many mature trees to chose from that it's a good idea to stroll around your house with a few years ahead in your mind, and study how an even bigger tree would look in a decade. Trees reach maturity at various sizes, so talking to a professional nursery about which trees grow rapidly, which ones grow slowly, and which big trees will grow even bigger. Landscaping should remain in proportion to the house or the building it surrounds. A homeowner certainly wouldn't want a Giant Redwood towering over their English cottage. Trees do come in a variety of foliage color, so that has to be taken into consideration. And do you enjoy raking leaves in the autumn? Deciduous trees are beautiful to look at but as soon as the weather changes, so do they. Perhaps a mixture of evergreens and deciduous, or even eucalyptus trees (only bark is shed there) would work.
In California, there is a variety of oak tree called a live oak. It does not shed its leaves, whereas its cousin does. And these Western oaks have decidedly smaller leaves than the Eastern North American area does. Oak trees are a big tree, as are a lot of evergreens, but pines grow much faster. Growth rate is another consideration when choosing any tree. And in Western states, where they have a lot of brushfires, some big trees are more fire resistant than others. Some big trees that you can purchase at a nursery are fully grown. Trees can range from micro trees (banzai for the indoors) to trees that stay fairly small, like Japanese Maples, to mid-sized trees like fruit trees, to some Redwoods (not the Giant ones) that are a good size, but can be planted in a garden with a nice amount of space.
When buying big trees, or ones that will grow even bigger, underneath the tree is a good site for some kind of plants. Not all trees cut off light to anything growing underneath it, as they do in the rain forest where one hundred and forty foot giants are not uncommon. Although grass doesn't grow under trees, many plants that like partial sunlight or shade will do beautifully. You can check with the same nursery that you buy your big tree or trees from, and get their advice on these "base" plantings. A balanced and thriving garden is a healthy garden, where each plant has its own place in the sun (or shade, whatever is to its liking).
