Q&A with garden designer and Chelsea Flower Show medal winner, Dawn Isaac - ANSWERS BACK

[PatrickMumsnet]

Dawn Isaac is a Chelsea Flower Show award winning garden designer and a mother of three young children. She combines her two main passions of gardening and her kids by trying to pass on her love of all things horticultural to Ava (8), Oscar (6) and Archie (3), a quest which is chronicled on her popular blog, which has had well over a quarter of a million visits and is the featured blog on the RHS family website.

Dawn also writes on garden design issues for the Guardian for which she won the New Talent Award from the Garden Media Guild in 2010 and her first book, Garden Crafts for Children, was published in February 2012. She's also teaching a Garden Design course as part of the new Mumsnet Academy.

Dawn has kindly agreed to take questions on everything from garden design to getting the most from your garden. She'll be checking this thread on Friday 25 May at 5pm and responding to your questions over the weekend, so please post your horticultural question to her before then.

lovely! i hadn't thought of elder and that fits really well with me because it's native and natural and has medicinal uses thank you!

Thanks Dawn!

Fab! Thank you Dawn!

Thanks Dawn, top tips. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. Will dig in loads of compost!

Gutted. I'd love to come on and thank Dawn, but given that mine was the only question she didn'y answer, I can't. Harumph

going to look what your question was civil.

here not the same but at least someone responded link has a few ideas. unfortunately it says, some fruit trees do well in containers but doesn't say which.

i'd go with www.japanesemapletree.co.uk/japanese-maple-container-grow.htm they are really beautiful imo.

Hi Civilfawlty - I am so sorry. I actually sent all my answers back to Mumsnet on 28th May - including yours, but for some reason it took a long while for them to appear on site and yours mysteriously disappeared (Mumsnet - any idea what happened?)

This is what I wrote:
Hi civilfawlty

The ideal trees to grow in pots are ones that are naturally slow growing or relatively small so although you may get some shade, in general you?re looking at a smaller canopy size than you would get from a tree grown in the ground.

I personally love Japanese acers in pots - they make a beautiful shape. However, they are slow growing so if you bought one of the size you?re talking about they might be scarily expensive! Also, they need light shade as their delicate leaves will scorch in full sun.

A better idea might be a fruit tree. You could buy an apple tree on a semi dwarfing rootstock. They will give you blossom, fruit and some shade. One note of caution - if you are only buying one it is safest to go for a self-fertile variety (unless there are lots of other apple trees in yours, and neighbouring gardens).

Of course, you could be very radical and cut a hole in your deck and create a planting hole in the ground beneath. This would mean you could get a slightly larger tree growing which would offer more shade and break up the strong horizontal lines of the deck.

Hope this helps!

Cheers

Dawn