• South Florida has long, hot summers and mild winters. Shade trees give you a place to relax, have a picnic or watch the children play. They also shade your house, which can save money on cooling costs over the five to seven months when temperatures approach 100 degrees F during the day. Shade trees lend different colors and textures to the landscape to beautify your South Florida yard.
  
  

Red Maple

• Red maple trees have color and texture to add to the landscape all year long. It's a fast-growing deciduous, ornamental tree that grows 40 to 60 feet tall. In the spring, before the leaves appear, male and female trees bloom with clusters of small red flowers. The flowers on the male tree have several long, yellow-tipped stamens. The red buds on female trees begin with two small v-shaped projections that form the wings of the samaras, a fruit that grows on the maple tree. The samaras are 1 to 1 1/2 inches long with a sweet fragrance, hanging from thin, drooping stems. Samaras may be an apple green color on some maple trees. The blooms can appear as early as February in South Florida. A large tree canopy provides shade during the summer. The striking, brilliant red leaves in the fall are a striking contrast to South Florida's many green trees. The bark, which is silvery gray, is eye-catching during the winter.
  
  

Sycamore

• The wide, dense canopy of the sycamore tree creates plenty of shade for hot summer days in South Florida. A sycamore tree needs room to grow as it reaches heights of 75 to 90 feet with a trunk that can have a diameter of 10 feet or more. Sycamore is also called a buttonwood tree. Balls of 1-inch fruit hang on the tree from thin stalks most of the winter. The fruit begins green, then changes to orange and brown. In the spring, the tiny seeds on the ball are released and a button-like core is left behind. During March and April, the green, red, yellow or brown, dense 1/2-inch clusters of flowers bloom on the sycamore. The maple-shaped leaves of the sycamore are medium to dark green in the spring and summer, turning brown in the fall. The most interesting part of sycamore trees is their bark. Young trees have dark reddish-brown bark, and as the tree ages, the bark separates from the tree and falls off, leaving a jigsaw puzzle pattern of gray, tan and brown. Eventually the smooth, white inner bark on the tree is all that shows.
  
  

Live Oak

• The massive, stately live oak is a fixture of the Southern landscape. In pictures of Southern plantations, the trees dripping with Spanish moss are live oak trees. They thrive along the coast in many Southern states, including South Florida, growing 40 to 80 feet tall and 60 to 100 feet in diameter. Live oak trees grown further inland grow slower and are semi-deciduous. The widespread, horizontal arching branches covered with waxy, dark green leaves create a broad area of shade to relax in during the summer. In April and May, 2 to 3 inch long clusters of yellow catkins bloom. Dark brown acorns measuring 1/3 to 1/2 inch long provide food for squirrels and many species of birds. Live oak trees also attract butterflies such as Horace's duskywing, northern hairstreak and white M hairstreak, which use the tree as a host for their larvae.