Almost all of the trees on this property were planted; none grew naturally there because it was a corn field until the house was built. Back in the 50s, a gravel road ran in from the street, along the property line on the east side, and cut across the lot just north of the cottage, continuing then down the west property line to the flat field by the pond where the kennel used to be. It had red pines, similar to Scotch pines, planted every six feet on both sides. All of those trees are gone now because, although charming when young, they grow tall and scraggly with no branches except at the top.
The row of trees directly behind the house consists, from east to west, of a metasequoia (dawn redwood), which is probably unique in MetroWest; then a tulip tree, so-named for the inconspicuous blossoms that it bears in the spring; then a sugar maple; then a pin oak that grew naturally further back and was moved in 1980, and finally a Norway maple. These trees serve mainly to shade the house in the summer. When their leaves drop in the fall, winter sunlight floods into the south-facing windows. The metasequoia is likely to grow quite large. Boston Botanical Garden has one, called the Mighty Dawn Redwood, whose trunk is eight feet in diameter.
The tree in the center of the back yard is another sugar maple that grew there naturally and was cabled to preserve its striking trunk structure. The two trees in front of the house look identical, one being much older, but in fact they are not. The old one, planted around 1960, is a kind of red maple and the young one is a copper beech, planted in 1999, that will soon be quite stately. At the west side of the house is one of the few mature catalpa trees in Natick. The big tree on the east side of the garage is a Norway maple that self-seeded from the one that grows up through the deck.
Panoramic view looking south from the deck of the cottage. The property line today is 20 ft past the line of trees. The pond beyond that was donated to the Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary, reducing the lot size to 1.75 acres that are high and dry.