I'm in zip code 93622, which is USDA Hardiness Zone 9b/National Gardening Association Zone 8a, and I'm looking for a tree that is/does three things:

1) provides good shade

2) is environmentally friendly; that is, it doesn't require tons of watering.

3) is preferably native to California, but this isn't a deal breaker

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

But I got ya. I know comparatively little about Cali trees but I do know there's some dandy oaks native out that way. Undoubtedly, a bunch of others too. Good on ya, desiring to rectify that situation in your new yard!

BTW, in my state, "Madtown" means only one thing-Madison WI. Any connection?

+oM

What I meant by "environmentally friendly" was right there on the same line, where it says "it doesn't require tons of watering," but you may have missed that part as you worked on your effort to be snarky to a person who is only on here to get help. Thanks for that. And then you disproved your own point about "all trees" being environmentally friendly when you pointed out one obvious counter-example to what I guess was your point.

Madtown is also a nickname for the city where I grew up, though I did spend a post-grad school year as a fellow at the University of Wisconsin, where I lived near Lake Mendota.

Thanks for the great advice; I'm on that Fresno County Master Gardeners as I type this, and then I'm going to be looking into Arizona Cypress, Incense Cedar, and Gray Pine.

+oM

So come on back, OP. I'm not such a bad guy!

+oM

Wow. Okay, the last thing that I wanted to do was to get on here and have to engage in non-tree-related conversations, but there's too much that needs to be addressed.

wisconsintom: sure, there's snark. Your rhetorical question is snarky because it's a passive-aggressive way of questioning my judgement, as if I was wrong to have used the phrase "environmentally friendly." There's snark in your flippant "But I got ya" comment, as if it took great deductive abilities to "get" me when, in fact, I had been very explicit about what I meant by "environmentally friendly"; all you had to have done was to have read that line to the end, where it mentions a tree that "doesn't require tons of watering." One would almost have to have gone out of one's way to have not gotten me, which might lead one to wonder why you would do that.

Dzitmoidonc: What I meant was in the body of my post; all you had to do was read a few lines down to find it. If your criticism of my writing is sincere (and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), that I should have defined my terms in the title, then, by extension, you'd be asking all writers everywhere to define terms in their titles, for all time. Otherwise, they'd be open to the same criticism. I can't believe that that is a position that you would want to have to defend, so I am going to assume that you only took it here to try to win an argument, which is another way to say that you were being, pardon me for having to say so, less than honest when you offered it here. But, of course, feel free to defend it here again.

Furthermore, that "left coast" comment is reductive and empty-headed and ridiculous. Mostly, though, it's just plain wrong. If by "left coast" you mean West Coast, as is the common understanding, then you are lumping in too much that is not closely related, which is something that no intelligent person (which I'll assume that you are) should ever want to do. As your statement reads, though, you're saying (maybe without even meaning to, though I'm not sure that speaks any better of you than if you had actually meant to) that Mercer Island is the same as the Mohave Desert because they are both left coast. You're saying that Portland is the same as Reno because they are both left coast. You're saying that Albion, Washington (with a population of right around 600), is the same as Los Angeles because they are both left coast. If you want to defend your Left coast comment, feel free, but you should understand that everything that you say in its defense will only further call into question your intelligence and your character.

Oh, and if you've got snark, also feel free to let it fly; again, however, you'll probably only make yourself look bad.

Now all that said, I really, truly, meant nothing more than to converse with someone I don't know about trees. And that remains my position. So where are you at with your perfectly reasonable question? I guess you're not going to believe it, but my initial impression upon reading your original post was that you were somebody who had the right idea about things.

+oM

I'm not at all mad (if that was what you were trying to imply by bolding those three letters in my screen name), and you'd have to be trying pretty hard to find anger in my comments. Mine are only concerns about language and reasoning, and I'm pretty sure that I spoke only to that. I'm in the language business, and I take it very seriously. So, I thought, either fellow writers were being imprecise or they didn't want to take full ownership of what they had said, and writers should be held accountable for that, which is what my responses to them were about.

But, as of now, I'll try to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume nothing but noble and kind intentions.

Peace and love,

madtownwriter