Trees for small gardens

[BooseysMom]

We have a small and wide back garden and want to plant trees to provide privacy as we have windows overlooking us from both sides. It's a new garden which was just laid with turf when we moved here. It's small but nice and wide and everything is planted round the sides leaving the turf in the middle bare and boring. It needs something. I'd like to build a path and pond and dig borders extending out to the middle. We really need a garden designer but have to be careful with cost.
We bought a Cotoneaster naoujanenais Berried Treasure tree from the garden centre and think it would look best as a centrepiece.
We also like the idea of an Acer Norway Maple Princeton Gold or a Liquidambar..see attached. I've never heard of the latter. What do you think? Would these grow to become an issue in 10 to 20 years?
Thanks.

You don't say how big your garden is, but 4 m is not particularly high. However 6 m wide is fairly big, the other tree you've shown has a 5 m spread at 10 years. They may shade the garden quite heavily depending on the aspect and density of leaf growth etc. If your garden centre is good, you could show them a picture of your back garden or at least give them the dimensions and ask for their suggestions.

Liquidambar is a lovely tree for autumn colour.

You could work on the principle of removing the tree if it were becoming an issue. You can prune some trees to limit their size (as is obvious when you think of beech hedges) but it won't necessarily look good - there was a picture on this board recently of a yew tree that the previous owner had done dreadful things to.

I'm assuming from your choices that you're looking for autumn colour - you could consider a Sorbus - I have one of the white berried ones which after 20 years is still relatively small.

@MereDintofPandiculation that was mine and yes it does look terrible, poor tree!

@RestorationInsanity..thanks for your advice. It's a good idea to ask the garden centre. We estimate the size to be about 20 x 30m. We need to check our plans but can't be bothered to find them since we moved here! We were going to plant a cotoneaster in the middle to break up the turf but DH not so sure. I said we can't just plant round the edges though, I want to create a winding path and pond too.

Mere.. thank you. Yes autumn colour is a must. We planted a small Acer but it doesn't seem to be growing. We want bigger shrubs and trees to provide some privacy and structure. Sorbus is a good idea, thanks.

Do you mean definitely mean metres or feet? If your garden is 20 m x 30 m that's not small (I mean it's not "land" but a very good size garden!) Mine's about the same size and we currently have several holly trees, a walnut, a maple, fruit trees etc and we've taken several conifers down that were half dead and quite ugly! We have a large patio, rose garden, wild flower area, mini orchard, secret garden area and lawn with vegetable beds and cutting beds plus the usual shed, greenhouse etc. In which case I would steer clear of very large trees close to the house, but you'll have a lot of options in a garden that size.

Well DH said metres. I'm rubbish at guessing size. We'll have to look it up. Going by what you've got in yours, I'd say it's half that size! We'd never get all that in!
It sounds fantastic!

Easiest way to get a rough idea is if you have standard slide in fence panels, they're usually 2 m wide.

The sorbus trees are fast growing and some are native if you are in the UK. You can get different varieties with different colour bark and berries.

An amelanchier might work for you. It’s a small tree but decent all year interest.

Amelanchier. It's lovely.

I'm rubbish at guessing size 2m is the length of a bed, give or take. Bed you sleep in, not flowerbed. So mentally divide the garden into bed lengths.

Recent events have told us it's also two llamas or two Bolts plus two Felixes (the Huddersfield Station cats). Or one tiger.

The sorbus trees are fast growing Some of them are, some are slower. The pink and white berried ones seem to be slower than the orange and yellow. That's on the Rowan side of the genus. On the other side of the genus you have all the whitebeams. Some of those can get quite large.

Yes, Amelanchier, but check the species. I know of two species diely available, one has masses of white flowers in spring, followed by small berries, and finally autumn colour. The other has all of that, place beautiful pinkish tinged new foliage in spring.

Rowans are lovely, they are mostly upright, and have lovely berries.

Crab apples.

Cornus, the smaller varieties.

Ot go for a quince or a medlar, they have lovely autumn foliage and fruit the brings more in

I came on to sat Amelanchier but check the variety as different varieties grow in different shapes, i have a taller slimmer one but the most common one has a bushier shape.

@MereDintofPandiculation

The sorbus trees are fast growing Some of them are, some are slower. The pink and white berried ones seem to be slower than the orange and yellow. That's on the Rowan side of the genus. On the other side of the genus you have all the whitebeams. Some of those can get quite large.

We have one pink berried one and one orange berried one, the orange one is 14 years old and is twice the height of the 3 year old pink berried one, time will tell! When we got the orange berried one it was a foot tall, 13 years on it's nearly as tall as the house.

We stick to the Rowan side of the genus.

Thanks everyone for your input and help. Currently in bed with the period from hell..I'm peri-menopausal so all the symptoms of that too. Joy! Not getting anything done. So going by the 2m for bed length method, I'd say DH is out by about 10m!! It will only be 10m length by 4 or 5 width so no big trees for us!!

No sorry, I meant 6m width ..dear me!!

I do think it's possible to have a lot more trees than many people realise, by selecting the right varieties. My garden is 11m x 8m and I have 7 small trees, each max 5m tall;

an amelanchier 'Robin Hill' - lovely
sorbus 'Joseph Rock'
a small upright magnolia
an apple tree (Laxtons Superb) on semi-dwarfing rootstock
Crab apple 'Laura' - wonderful
another crab apple Malus Tschonoskii - this has never looked well and I might replace it
and a big old bay tree (here when we arrived).

I also have a large ceanothus arboreus which is technically a shrub but looks like a tree, and a very tall weigela bush.

My trees are still quite young, they are between 2-8 years old, so in 10 years time they might need a bit of cutting back and thinning out. In the mean time I am planning to add a pear tree to replace a big old escallonia which is nearing the end of its life.

My mission in life is to create privacy in my garden, but I do have some grass in the middle (just enough for a table tennis table) as well as a small pond and a pergola. Luckily the garden never had to accommodate DC playing football.

this is a really good blog post about privacy, and her book has a lot of good ideas too

sorbus 'Joseph Rock' is narrow but gets quite tall, which is why I didn't recommend it. An established bay tree will reach the eaves, and tends to be multistemmed, so quite wide. On the other hand, it can be ruthlessly pruned. I wouldn't choose it as a shade tree as you can't sit under it - the growth comes down to the ground. But it's a good privacy bush.

Something I'd forgotten which stays a reasonable size is Prunus subhirtella "autumnalis" - winter flowering cherry. Flowers in winter on bare stems, but nothing special in summer.

@TheKickInside..thanks for your post listing all the trees in your garden and the link to the blog on privacy. You have a lovely variety of trees.
This tells me I just need to get planting.
So I'm wondering where would you plant a cotoneaster? Atm we only have a pear tree in one corner and a couple of Californian lilac, one each side of the lawn. I'm fed up of only planting around the edges and want to break the habit and plant it right in the centre of the lawn!!

mere.. thanks for the tips. I thought of a winter flowering cherry too as it doesn't get too big.

Changing topic I watched GW from last week and my latest thing is I must make an alpine pot! Those alpine flowers Monty planted were exquisite.

Good suggestions on this thread. I suggest you don’t randomly plant in the middle but make yourself a plan. Lots of ideas on Pinterest.

Start with things you need to keep and can’t move ( like a shed ) , add a seating area or two in the sun , work out where things like a bin store will be, where you need the screening, what areas will be in shade or sun etc . What soil type you have, what’s your climate, aspect etc. Choose what style of planting you like.

You really need to decide all that before you choose individual plants. Otherwise it will just be random. Trees don’t like being moved and August isn’t the ideal time to plant them anyway.

ALLIS0N
That's great advice thanks. DH has drawn up a plan but it didn't involve planting anything in the middle! I said I don't want the turf. I want to plant borders and have a path from the patio to a bench at the top. The problem is it's on a slope but we don't want to build anything big like a supporting wall. Also it's a new build so the garden consists of clay and stone and is really difficult to dig.

New builds often have terrible soil full of junk that’s been dumped by the builders. You might have to dig out some of the stones and add organic matter.

On the plan - you REALLY want to avoid a path going right up the middle. Is your patio where you want it to be ? Often it’s next to the house even if that’s in the shade and you will never sit there.

ALLIS0N.. this is exactly what we discovered..we've got about a spade's depth of clay top soil, the rest is rubble. It's dreadful and nigh on impossible to dig. However by some miracle, the pear tree we planted is growing! It's been in 2.5 years and has the grand total of 2 years which is 2 more than last year but I know it takes a few years before it produces fruit.

The patio is where we want it, it's north facing but we don't like sun so are happy with it. Really not sure where the path should go.

So I have already bought a cotoneaster naoujanenais Berried treasure and just trying to work out the best position for it.

Thanks for your advice x