My thoughts:
Scale: This is pretty much fine, considering that the hobbit houses would be pretty tiny. However, the trees in the woody end and old forest will have to be enlarged to compensate. I also feel that hobbits might in general prefer the smaller, prettier trees (e.g. blossoming fruit trees), this is just my opinion on what hobbits are like though. I don't feel they are going to plant many trees in order for them to grow large, anyway, especially since they won't use large trees much for building (small buildings only, no navy).
Placement: This is a problem. In village, you usually get very few trees among the houses, and those that you do get are very small (garden trees). Any larger trees will have been chopped down for actually building the houses. You may get a few larger trees on a village green or park or the like, but the problem with the hobbit village layout is that they are not really made like villages (a real village is almost always built around 1 or 2 roads and a junction) so that there are not any good places for a tree area inside the village. Without a #shirerevamp2014 there is nothing that can be done about this.
Another problem concerning placement is that there are several trees which seem to be the only one of their species in the area. Just no. That is not how trees reproduce. To be honest an entire area (like, a farthing-sized area) is likely to mainly contain only 2 or 3 types of tree naturally, potentially with a few cultivated ones too. In fact a loose division of tree types between the four farthings could be a cool, subtle way to distinguish different parts of the Shire which are currently very nondescript.
Good places to put trees can be around villages, the little group of yew(?) trees just outside Hobbiton isn't bad. They should always be in groups, not necessarily right up next to each other but close by. A good place for a little grove would be a hilltop, you get a lot of places like this since the hilltops are not so good for farming on (anywhere with hurst or hirst in its name had one of these). You might also get rows of trees dividing fields, poplars are especially *ahem* popular for this.
Design: Mostly this is good, but I have a couple complaints.
Some of the trees look kinda derpy, for example the first one speedy posted with the pear-shaped canopy. I'm guessing it's meant to be an aspen? The canopy should be wider near the top, and while I realise it's seasonal it would be really nice have the aspen's beautiful characteristic yellow leaves, as well as making it way more recognisable. As glove said, some of the trees need to have fuller canopies: in a forest, trees grow up for light but in a field they grow out.
The other problem I have with some of the trees is that they look too clipped and cultivated; while the hobbits are gardeners they would definitely not like formal gardens so a topiary hedge kind of tree is not going to happen. I am thinking particularly of the one on the waterfront in Bywater, there shouldn't be a tree there at all really (what's wrong with some flowers?). On the other end of the spectrum there are some which look have so many leaves missing they look like they have some kind of disease, though this isn't nearly so bad.
Thanks for reading. I hope I've been constructive.
Scale: This is pretty much fine, considering that the hobbit houses would be pretty tiny. However, the trees in the woody end and old forest will have to be enlarged to compensate. I also feel that hobbits might in general prefer the smaller, prettier trees (e.g. blossoming fruit trees), this is just my opinion on what hobbits are like though. I don't feel they are going to plant many trees in order for them to grow large, anyway, especially since they won't use large trees much for building (small buildings only, no navy).
Placement: This is a problem. In village, you usually get very few trees among the houses, and those that you do get are very small (garden trees). Any larger trees will have been chopped down for actually building the houses. You may get a few larger trees on a village green or park or the like, but the problem with the hobbit village layout is that they are not really made like villages (a real village is almost always built around 1 or 2 roads and a junction) so that there are not any good places for a tree area inside the village. Without a #shirerevamp2014 there is nothing that can be done about this.
Another problem concerning placement is that there are several trees which seem to be the only one of their species in the area. Just no. That is not how trees reproduce. To be honest an entire area (like, a farthing-sized area) is likely to mainly contain only 2 or 3 types of tree naturally, potentially with a few cultivated ones too. In fact a loose division of tree types between the four farthings could be a cool, subtle way to distinguish different parts of the Shire which are currently very nondescript.
Good places to put trees can be around villages, the little group of yew(?) trees just outside Hobbiton isn't bad. They should always be in groups, not necessarily right up next to each other but close by. A good place for a little grove would be a hilltop, you get a lot of places like this since the hilltops are not so good for farming on (anywhere with hurst or hirst in its name had one of these). You might also get rows of trees dividing fields, poplars are especially *ahem* popular for this.
Design: Mostly this is good, but I have a couple complaints.
Some of the trees look kinda derpy, for example the first one speedy posted with the pear-shaped canopy. I'm guessing it's meant to be an aspen? The canopy should be wider near the top, and while I realise it's seasonal it would be really nice have the aspen's beautiful characteristic yellow leaves, as well as making it way more recognisable. As glove said, some of the trees need to have fuller canopies: in a forest, trees grow up for light but in a field they grow out.
The other problem I have with some of the trees is that they look too clipped and cultivated; while the hobbits are gardeners they would definitely not like formal gardens so a topiary hedge kind of tree is not going to happen. I am thinking particularly of the one on the waterfront in Bywater, there shouldn't be a tree there at all really (what's wrong with some flowers?). On the other end of the spectrum there are some which look have so many leaves missing they look like they have some kind of disease, though this isn't nearly so bad.
Thanks for reading. I hope I've been constructive.
.
