Can you recommend me a small tree?

[steppemum]

I am going round and round in circles!
Our front garden is currently grey slate chips with one or two plants sticking through. It needs redoing. We are going to keep the slate chips, but as we need to redo the underlying black weed suppressing stuff, we are going to remove the current useless boring plants, and make two circular beds. We want a speciment tree/shrub in each bed, and then underplant with small bulbs, cyclamen, bedding plants in summer etc.

The space is not huge, it is about 3 metres from house to road, and about 6m wide, the beds will be about 1- 1.5 m diameter max, and sit at the front edge of the site. (there is a path between the beds and the house.

So I need two matching specimen shrubs or trees for the centre of each bed.
They cannot be too large as it is closeish to the house and we don't want to over shade the front windows.
must be:
-not pink (white flowers by preference)
-more than one season interest (eg flowers and autumn foliage)
-thin at the bottom, so single stem or mutiple stem with leaves higher up (we need to see past them to get off the drive, so not a thick bush)
-not globe /lollipop shape - my favourite shape would be like a birch tree, upright, delicate, slender and airy, not dense, solid canopy.

I started by looking at small trees, crab apples, amalanchier, Rowan etc, but I am afraid they are going to end up too big, and if I prune too much, they will loose shape.

Any suggestions?

Oh, forgot to say, site is dry, west facing, and exposed (full sun and a bit windy), so no shelter.
The perfect tree would be an acer, which needs shelter, wet and not full sun, so that's out!

Which U.K. plants hardiness zone are in you for gardening?
Can be anywhere from 6 to 9 as that will affect tree type.

Maybe a wild cherry tree?
Can be kept small. White flowers in spring. Yellow bright leaves in autumn.
Bee friendly.
www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/a-z-of-uk-native-trees/wild-cherry/

Picture.

sorry don't know the hardiness zone, I am i a large town in South England.

Yes, a cherry was the other one I had thought of.

Do you think it is going to be too much to have 2 trees though? Overwhelm the front of the house?
Or do you think I can keep them small enough?

Part of me is tempted to stop looking for a tree, and start looking forwe really wanter a single stem, because of visibilty getting off the drive

I would go for a viburnum (you can get them with white flowers). I had one in my last house and it was perfect. Never got out of hand, easy to keep a the shape you want and pretty flowers. It had a beautiful scent too.

and start looking forwe really wanter

no idea where that came fro
m! Start looking for a shrub, but we really wanted a single stem..... is what I was trying to say.

Magnolias are pretty, need erecaceous soil though.
Lilacs come in white and can be trained to a tree like form.
Dwarf apricots and cherry both (I think) have white flowers.

What about a spindle tree?
www.deepdale-trees.co.uk/trees/2017/10-Euonymus-europaeus.html

I would also reconsider a multistemmed amelanchier- the ones I’ve seen are pretty slow growing and the foliage is light

I’d also look at some of the dogwoods- cornus Florida or cornus kousa. May get a bit big though

I do love dogwoods, for some reason I dismissed them, do they like wet conditions?

The spindle tree looks nice too.

I love magnolias in the spring, but they are boring for the rest of the year, same with lilacs.

One reason I woudl love an acer is that their leaves are pretty all year.

I can recommend this place OP. Lots of really great search options on the webpage.

I recently bought this for a big pot and it is a really healthy tree, very pleased.

We've done a border of upright horn beams but they are deciduous so probably not that interesting.

Wedding tree (if that's what it's called?

How about a fastigiate Field Maple? Acer campestre?

Columnar shape, attractive leaves, gorgeous autumn colouring, hardy as anything and slow to reach its maximum height.

Don't worry too much about hardiness zones, what does for plants in the winter is not so much the cold, more the wet soil and low light levels.

Do you think it is going to be too much to have 2 trees though?, yes, in a 3m x 6m space.
Or do you think I can keep them small enough? You can keep a tree small by restricting root run (think bonsai) but not very satisfactorily by pruning. So you'd be better, I think, to look at an airy shrub with few stems.

It's not the colour you want, but Hamamelis? Yellow or orange strap light flower on bare stems in spring, really good autumn colour.

Native spindles prefer limey soils, but there are non-native species which do better on neutral soils. They're all one season really, though - red autumn foliage and berries contrasting with the bright colour of the seed capsule. But they tend to be dense at the base.

Amelanchier is quite a good choice - it is a light and airy shrub, and if it gets too many stems you can remove then. Spring foliage is a lovely pinkish colour, then there's the flowers, and autumn foliage is good too. Winter flowering cherry (Prunus subhirtella autumnalis) is a slow growing tree, not too dense. The pink varieties are sought after, but mine is such a pale pink that it seems white.

An 'Olympic Flame' Rowan tree. All year round interest. Golden leaves in Spring, Green in summer then gorgeous flame red in autumn. Doesn;t get too tall.

Or some acers. Pick ones with patterned bark and feathery leaves. They are so varied and stunning.

Do you think it is going to be too much to have 2 trees though?

It isn’t very big OP. My weeping tree reaches 3m x 3m in 20 years. Growth will be restricted by virtue of it being in a humongous pot.

I came to say a rowing as well.

Or crab apple?

Or even a medlar?

Hawthorn.

I have a rowan that is two storeys high, a weeping crab apple which is beautiful and draws lots of comments, but which is now 6m across, and a medlar which is nearer 10m across. OP's site is 6m x 3m which suggests either something a lot smaller, or that she should be prepared to uproot after about 10 ears and start again.

years not ears

Oh lots of lovely ideas, thank you.

Or some acers. Pick ones with patterned bark and feathery leaves. They are so varied and stunning.

2 of the tiny acer varities would actually be my first choice, but every single thing about this site is wrong for acers, it is dry, exposed/windy and in full sun. When you read about acers they like wet, shade/partial shade/shelter and not windy.

I think we might go for the amalanchier as a shrub, not a tree, and keep it well pruned!

I had a Cornus Kousa at my last house, absolutely lovely.
I've been eyeing up a white berried Rowan tree I've seen locally, definitely on my list for my next garden, and might suit your needs better as the canopy can be lifted a bit higher.

@MereDintofPandiculation (brilliant name btw) the rowan I suggested is said to be a smaller variety. I know there are some gorgeous dwarf varieties because DPiLs had one in their last garden.

That malus is gorgeous @LifeOfBox.

Oh my goodness! That website is amazing, I have searched loads but that site has proper dwarf trees.

Now looking at the japanese apricot tree, dwarf grafted on to a stem which will then not grow taller, (stem about 1m-1.5m high) final height of tree only 2.5 m. Right shape, spring and autumn interest and it is BEAUTIFUL!

AND it is tough, the site description fits very well.

A pair of these would just look beautiful.
Only problem is, they are £55 each.

I can get 2 lamalanchiers for that.