Slightly clueless gardeners!

[Thalassa9]

As the title suggests my husband and I are not the most experienced gardeners. For the first time we have a garden of our own which needs a bit (maybe a lot) of TLC. I wondered if anyone had suggests for some nice mid-sized trees to plant on our lawn and/or any tips for which plants do best to plant around boarders to hide the fence a little. One side has some bamboo and generally taller plants/trees whilst the other has mostly shrubs. I was maybe thinking of climbing roses? Basically any advice would be most welcome! Does anyone have any experience with magnolia galaxy trees? Many thanks in advance for your advice! :)

You probably need to specify what you mean by "mid sized". I have a medlar tree about 30ft high, neighbour has a silver birch about 50ft high, and neighbour beyond that has a conifer 75ft high ... on that basis 50ft would be mid-sized

Rowan, hawthorn, or crab apple. Immense wildlife value, and pretty.

Hah! She’s my inexperience MereDintofPandiculation!

Mid-sized I’d say maybe 20/30ft??

Our place was originally an orchard so has some apple trees down the end of the garden but they aren’t doing well and seem to have lots of fungus growing all over them. I was thinking along the lines of planting something to eventually replace some of them...

Thanks stella I will have a look! Stupid question - can you eat crab apples?!

I planted a winter flowering ornamental cherry and its been a pleasure all winter. Full of blossom from November and its still flowering now. When everything has died back, it's like a beacon of hope!

We have a cherry tree in the front which has beautiful blooms beautifully but very briefly in the spring! We planted it last year so it’s still quite twig like 😂
Does anyone have suggestion for the best place to buy a tree? Or of any tree farms? We are in the Oxfordshire area...

I meant to say I love the idea of a winter flowering cherry tree. I will have a look! Sorry, trying to multitask!!

Crab apples: some can be made into jelly.

Quince
Pears
Plum

Your apples may have lichen on them which is a sign of excellent air quality and won’t harm the trees - can you post a picture? And maybe a plan of your garden? Which way does it face, how big, do you know anything about the soil type and quality?

What kind of soil do you have, what are the boundaries and how much sun? My favourite trees would be apple, crab apple, hawthorn, amelanchier, cherry blossom,silver birch depending on the site. We have a lovely magnolia (not sure what type) and I have recently added a small amelanchier. What will you grow under it? Ie does it matter how much shade it will cast?
Difficult to say on what would work in the borders without more information.

Sorbus - white flowers in spring, red, orange, white, pink or yellow berries in late summer, good autumn colour.

Amelanchier - well coloured spring foliage, white flowers, followed by blackbird-friendly black berries, good autumn colour.

Crab apple - white flowers, yellow or red crab apples which may be as large as a gobstopper or as small as a pea. I have a weeping one.

Climbing/rambling roses look good in amongst bushes, as do clematis.

If you're going for Magnolia and climbing roses, then cottage garden perennials would look good in a border. Something like this: www.jparkers.co.uk/cottage-garden-perennial-collection-1017960c will give you a good amount of height and help hide the fence. If you're wanting lowish maintentence perhaps fill the spaces with some ground cover like creeping thyme, campanula.

If you want year-round interest, I'd google evergreen bushes and climbers then research which ones would work with the soil and aspect you have. Then you can 'fill in' any gaps in the borders with perennials which complement the colours, shapes and textures of the bushes you've chosen.

Hi, thanks for all the responses. These are the trees I’d ideally like to replace. They don’t look like they’re doing very well. I read a little about lichen - combination of fungus and algae which are an indication of good air quality but also of the tree is not thriving. Is that right?

I’ve also attached a small portion of the boarder some of which is under shade and some not. There’s lavender in the shady spots at the moment. Garden is south facing and I think clay soil?? Sorry I’m not too sure. Think novice. We have lived in the city all our lives and recently move out.

I recommend an evergreen or semi-evergreen ceanothus for your border. Make sure you get one that is inclined to grow up, not spread on the ground. They are beautiful, the flowers delightful, good for bees, and most important you can prune them, train them into a little tree or tie them into a trellis, grows quite fast so you can buy a small one cheaply, they don't catch diseases in my experience .... easy!

Another easy win for your border would be a sambuca nigra, these are beautiful shrubs and again like being pruned hard and grow back fast next year. So if you mess it up one year you get another attempt! Also cheap. I've had issues with ants farming aphids on sambuca but still I think worth it.

Last recommendation is dogwood, to hide your fence. Lovely stems in winter. If you have a dark fence, a green stemmed dogwood would look stunning against it.

That border in your photo looks very shallow however. If you don't want to make it deeper, perhaps invest in a little trellis and grow a clematis. They need a bit of care but keep the label and follow the pruning instructions to the letter, you'll be fine.

The tree looks a little overcrowded. Have a look at www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=279

I wouldn't myself rush to replace it, I'd wait until next winter, so I knew what apples it had and whether it was worth keeping. According to wiki, there are over 7500 varieties of the domestic apple, but in the supermarkets we have a choice of perhaps 6 eaters and only 1 cooker. Chances are, your tree won't be anything special, but it may be.

I wouldn't rush to do anything in the garden, except to keep on top of the weeds. Wait a few months to see what you've actually got.

Thanks for the apple tree information! I’ll have a look. The trees look about to bloom. The previous owners told us that the apples can’t be eaten. We’ve had the house since winter the year before last so have seen the garden bloom during spring time and have decided to keep many aspects of the front garden. The rear just looks a bit of a mess! The boarders especially are a vast mixture of different heights/type of plants and weeds. I’m sure we will work slowly to rectify it, just wanted to get some advice! Thank you all :)

Does anyone have suggestions about the best way to source plants/trees if that’s what we went with?

Not the year before last - I meant last year sorry!

Ooh they maybe lovely cooking apples! My parents have a vintage variety which is SO much nicer than Bramley

The tree lichen is fine, but it may need a print but not now. Wait until the right time of year.

Print? PRUNE 🤣

My apple trees look like that, we made cider all through the autumn with the apples! See what happens to them over the summer/early autumn.

Many of my apple trees have small metal tags on, have a good hunt around the tree to see if yours have (they can be quite hard to find). I was able to identify most of my trees through their tags. I don’t know what i’m doing either...but the research was quite good fun and it’s helped me to draw a plan up of the garden and what’s in it, so I can work out what to do next.

In the autumn you might be able to find an institution holding an "Apple Day" near you, where you could take along a couple of your apples and hopefully get an identification.

Obviously this would be a long way down the line but the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale offer a fruit identification service. It costs £25 and the 2020 form isn't available yet, obviously. I've never used it myself but they're the absolute experts.

Hello! So sorry to revive an old thread but I have some pictures of our apple tree blooms and some apples! I wondered if anyone would recognise them?

Don’t know but they look delicious!
Have you tasted any yet?