Guys, plant breeders are absolutely slaying it when it comes to new tree varieties. 2025 is going to be a very good year if you’re looking for trees with tons of color and style and four-season landscape interest. All parts of the tree are working to make your garden outstanding – not just leaves but flowers, berries, and even bark. Even better, these low-maintenance trees are disease-resistant, and they’ll fit into a small yard or garden. Those plant breeders have thought of everything!
Read on for the best and trendiest new trees of 2025.
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1. Metamorphosa® Japanese Maple
Acer palmatum Metamorphosa®
Growing only 5 to 13 feet tall, this shrubby Japanese maple is a veritable kaleidoscope of colors all season long. In spring, its lacy leaves open in yellow and develop pink edges, then white. In summer, the yellow leaves are washed with reddish-orange, while leaves out of the sun remain green. In fall, the entire leaf turns orange-red and metamorphoses into red-violet for a blaze of color to end the year. A finalist in the RHS Plant of the Year competition at the high-class Chelsea Flower Show. Not bad! A tidy, disease-resistant small tree. Zones 5-8.
Available from Wayside Gardens.
2. Ragin' Red™ Dogwood
Have you ever seen a red so dark and deep on a dogwood? This small tree, growing about 15 to 20 feet tall, gives you an all-season color. In late spring, the bracts of this dogwood first open in a purple-red that’s almost black. The bracts then turn into a deep, dark red that gives you several weeks of great color. And while all that is happening, new leaves are popping out in burgundy red, eventually turning dark green streaked with red. And if that weren’t enough, you get fall color and bright red berries that keep glowing in the landscape into winter (and feeding the birds). Your local garden club will be absolutely gobsmacked by this amazing little dogwood tree! And you will be, too! Zones 5 to 8.
Available from Dietrich Gardens.
3. Rock Steady®Chastetree
Vitexagnus-castus
The chastetree is already a really cool little tree on its own, with lots of blooming power and a pretty shape. But Rock Steady takes blooming to a whole new level, flowering anywhere from 6 to 16 weeks longer than other chastetrees. I love an overachieving tree!
The secret here is that Rock Steady blooms on new wood. In spring, it’s busy growing out tons of flower buds. Then, in late spring, those buds start popping out a display of purple-blue flowers resembling those of butterfly bush, and the flowers keep going and going until fall. Like butterfly bush, it also attracts butterflies and pollinators. It’s even hardy to zone 5, to which I say finally! I can grow a chastetree in my yard at last!
In colder regions, it could experience winter dieback, but fear not – it will come back in spring and pop out blossoms anyway. Might have to grow it as a shrub north of zone 6. Zones 5b to 9.
Available from Hirt’s Gardens.
4. Magnolia J’Adore™ ‘Eternal Fragrance’
Magnolia laevifolia (aka Michelia yunnanensis)
This new introduction is not yet available to the public but looks incredible for you southern gardeners. This magnolia bears masses of white flowers with pink-edged petals, all spiced with a heavenly fragrance. Eternal Fragrance blooms profusely from late winter into spring. Flowers are formed in clusters along the length of the entire stem, not just the terminal shoots. In Southern California, this tree will offer a second flush of blossoms from summer through autumn. Leaves are small and green, and the tree itself is dense and compact, reaching only 5’ tall and 4’ wide at maturity.
Grow as a low hedge or screen. Great for small yards and large containers.
At the moment, this magnolia is available only at PlantHaven International, a wholesaler. Keep an eye out for it in the future.
5. Skinny Fit® Ginkgo
Skinny Fit®Ginkgobiloba
A curiously columnar ginkgo! If you have only a small garden area, Skinny Fit®ginkgo is your go-to tree. It grows only 3 ½ feet wide and rockets up to 10 to 16 feet tall. In fall, the lobed fan-like leaves turn a brilliant golden yellow.
Plant a row of these columnar ginkgos to define a garden’s edge or to form a handsome screen. These can even be grown in containers!
This ginkgo stays where you want it to. It bears no flowers, no fruits in fall, and seems to be completely sterile. If you’ve always wanted a stately ginkgo tree in your yard but never had the space for those 50-foot-tall trees, now’s your chance. Zones 4 to 9.
Not available yet (outside of wholesalers,) but keep an eye open for it in 2025.
6. Temple of Bloom®Seven-Son Flower
Heptacodiummiconioides ‘Temple of Bloom’
Temple of Bloom®seven-son flower was once a small tree rarely available to the public, but it’s finally enjoying its time in the sun.
In spring, the handsome leaves emerge in a pretty shade of lime green that changes to forest green as they mature. As the season progresses, the leaves grow larger and develop a long, twisting tip.
In late summer, the Temple of Bloom covers itself with big panicles of fragrant, creamy-white flowers enjoyed by butterflies and pollinators (and people.) When the flowers drop, they leave behind big clusters of cherry-red sepals that make the plant look like it’s blooming a second time! In winter, the leaves drop, showing off the tree’s amazing grey and light-tan peeling bark that resembles birch bark.
You can grow Temple of Bloom as a tall shrub or small tree (it gets only 10 feet tall and wide). Regular pruning in late winter can keep this tree in shape. Zones 5 to 9.
Available from White Flower Farm.
7. Avalanche™Birch
Betula x'Avalzam'
The old-fashioned paper birch (Betula papyrifera) dwindled in the Midwest and other areas due to the bronze birch borer, which obliterated the lovely white-barked trees. Well, now it’s back – technically, a white hybrid birch selection from legendary plant breeder Jim Zampini.
Everything you love about a white birch, only in a smaller package. Young bark starts as a tan color, softens to pink, then turns a glorious white color. Resistant to bronze birch borer. Avalanche is a medium-fast grower, reaching 50 feet tall and 35 feet wide.
This birch selection is also great for longevity. The original birches were brought to the United States from Japan in the mid to late 1800s by Storrs & Harrison Nursery of Painesville, Ohio. This particular birch has outlived the other birches it was planted with. I’d guess that Jim Zampini took notice of this lovely old birch and how well it has prospered through the centuries, took some cuttings, trialed the tree, and brought it back into commerce.
It is an interspecific hybrid (that is, a hybrid of two genera – that’s why it has the “x” in its scientific name).
At any rate, Avalanche provides four seasons of beauty, is a low-maintenance tree, is disease and insect-resistant, and is a reliable performer – and that’s what matters.
8. Andean Gold™ Austrian Pine
Pinus nigra 'Monmel'
Here’s a new cultivar of Austrian pine that’s noteworthy by its tight branching, slow growth (slow-growing trees are much stronger than fast-growers), but especially its bright candles and needles, which come out in a bright yellow, then ages to light green.
Branches are slightly curved compared to the species, and they’re very strong and flexible (which your insurance company will thank you for). And, of course, you get that delicious fresh pine scent from every bough.
Like other Austrian pines, Andean Gold will tolerate poor soils and harsh, drying winds. These will brighten up your windbreaks while more effectively blocking freezing winter winds. Or simply plant it out front where your neighbors can gawk at this lovely golden-tipped pine tree.
Grows 20 to 30 feet tall. Zones 5 to 8. Not available in commerce yet, but keep an eye open for it in 2025.
Conclusion
Life is short. Plant more trees that will brighten up the world now.
Read more gardening advice from Rosefiend Cordell.
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