Trees in small gardens

[WobblyLondoner]

Inspired by some photos on the show us your garden thread I'd love to see some pictures of trees in small gardens.

I've a small urban garden (c 40 foot by 15) and I currently have an acer and a witch hazel (both in large pots) and a really annoying apple tree (too dwarf and - through my own inept staking - completely lopsided). I have tried and failed with a rowan. I'm wondering about a tree to replace the apple tree and perhaps something else. But I'm always a bit fearful of buying something too big, and even the trees suggested for small gardens eventually grow pretty high and have a big canopy.

I'd love to see your pictures!

Hope ok but am tagging @Fiorentina (hope that's the right spelling) who had some fantastic photos on another thread.

@FLOrenze that sounds so lovely.

Tell me about your silver birch - don't they grow very tall? They are beautiful trees and I've seen some amazing multi stem ones. For my garden it is them or amelanchier that I keep coming back to. Silver birch I guess has a smaller canopy in terms of the area underneath?

I'm thinking about 3 possible spaces for trees: in the centre of the garden garden (where my sad dwarf apple tree is, this would help give our sitting area more privacy); nearer the house (about 9 foot from the back wall); or near the boundary fence (this area is tricky as its overhung by two very greedy cherry plums - from the garden behind me).

I have 4 silver birch. Two I bought from Crocus for about £40. Two I bought from Wilko for £4. 4 years on there is no difference between them. I think wilko are great for plants.

I bought mine because I wanted them really tall and umbrella shape. So I cut of all the lower branches as they grew. Then as they put on leaves from the trunk I cut that too. For the last year they have stopped branching from the trunk. So they are as I want them.

A mistake I made with one of them was to wipe away some top bark to reveal the white. They took a while to recover. I think better to let nature do. it’s own thing.

If you are after fruit trees then Lidl are due to have dwarf ones in on Thursday. I took out an old dead tree in my garden when I moved in, but there is now less shelter for birds, so looking to get some back in. The acer isn't doing great, thanks to being in a dry spot and toddler ds ripping bits off last year.

I think I'm leaning towards an Amelanchier but a question for anyone with one (or two @FLOrenze !) - what's your soil ph? I read that they don't like too alkaline a soil and realise I'm not very sure about mine - I'm on London clay ultimately, but with a huge amount of compost etc mixed in over the years.

I second Malus robusta 'Red Sentinel'. It's a really lovely small tree. It looks great year round.

I am on London clay too. I live in east London so very heavy clay. I dug in peat free multipurpose compost before planting and they are fine. They don’t like to dry out so in the early years I kept them well watered. Now they don’t get any special treatment only in really long dry,spells. I bought two of mine as 15 feet specimens they needed a double stake for the first two years.

The smaller ones came from the telegraph Garden Shop as 3 feet tall. They doing well too.

I have a 7m x 7m ish S facing garden and have an olive, a winter flowering cherry and an Amelanchier. The Amelanchier is not a lamarckii, it’s Robin Hill variety which is supposed to grow in a more neat and upright fashion. They’re all pretty new though so time will tell... We are London too.

We also have a Windmill palm that is in our rear neighbour’s garden that provides really good evergreen screening. If that ever goes I’m going to plant a couple more trees in the space...

Oh yes we also have a baby fig tree in a corner competing for space with the climbing frame!! That will be pruned heavily to make it grow up rather than out.

May I just sound a warning about flowering cherry trees? The one in my front garden, planted by a previous owner, rooted into the main sewer and collapsed it.
It cost me £3,000 to dig up the whole length of my front path, excavate the broken sewer underneath and replace it entirely with modern rootproof mains drainage.
The tree also threw suckers thirty feet in all directions, sprouting secondary trees in my neighbour’s garage drain and all over my garden.
I had to get it felled and the stump injected with weedkiller pellets before it finally gave up!

@FLOrenze your garden is beautiful!

May I ask what is growing in the shade beneath the trees?

Do you mean the yellow one? It’s Acer Sango Kanu. It starts of peach in early spring then yellow then bronze. In the winter it loses it leaves to reveal scarlet stems

Thid

I did not pay anything like that for mine

Weeping birch are a good alternative to silver birch for smaller gardens, with a more draped feel a bit like a weeping willow.

Plus the delicate small leaves let light through and are so small they blow away in autumn rather than creating a big mess.

This is a very useful and inspiring thread!

I like silver birch. Beautiful trunks, tall growing but don’t block out the light, plus non invasive roots.

@OlivesTree. Growing under the trees are mostly Acers.

Also Ornamental Grasses, calamagrosti Karl forester, stipa anemanthele pheasant grass and stipa tennuisima angels hair. And 4 unnamed ones from wilko.

Pheasant grass is year round so good value but prefers sum sun. Then there are Japanese anenome which grow like weeds, Veronica Charlotte .astrantia , Angelica, ferns, dwarf holly and some low growing cypress also from wilko.

I have a deep mulch of gravel all over the garden which saves watering. I don’t clear up the leaves which fall in abundance so the garden does not need any feeding.

It’s also a good idea to plant trees that are beneficial for wildlife. Nothing better than a tree full of birds and butterflies.

I have a small east London garden. I have a crab apple, birch tree, ornamental cherry, 3 acers, potted cherry, peach and plum. I'm thinking of getting a dwarf apple, and an Amalanchier (small). I think it's easier to fit a tree in rather than a shrub, the trunks don't take up too much space and shrubs can be grown next to them. I prefer deciduous trees, and then evergreen shrubs.
Obviously I don't buy large trees

@FLOrenze Amazing. Thank you!

I’m heading to the garden centre this morning.... if I can face the wind!

We live on a corner and have a very long and narrow garden at the side of our house so we’ve just planted two column flowering cherry trees in it (Amanogawa).
We had one at our last house and it was lovely, and perfect for what we needed here.

I am off to the garden centre too. 3 years ago we were given a tree in a beautiful pot for our golden wedding. This morning the tree is on its side with the pot smashed.😢

A buddleia grown as a tree and kept under control can look amazing - my neighbours have a rhododendron, a buddleia as a tree - a really dark one and an Amelanchier.

The buddleia can be cut back hard if it gets out of control too.

Any recommendations for a silver birch for a small garden

@FLOrenze I'm in the middle of a garden refurb at the moment and your garden is stunning, exactly the look I'd love. I've got the larger items sorted but had no idea what to plant between them until now

Have you thought of training the trees into the shape you require i.e. pleached and espaliered trees. It is a more formal way of keeping a tree under control and great for a small area.
There are also several species of trees that can be pollarded every 4 - 5yrs that reduces the canopy size and allows them to reshoot.

Our garden is a bit smaller than yours lengthwise op but about the same width. We have planted a small copse of 5 silver birches, approx a metre apart so they keep small trunks. We also have a cherry tree at the far end of the garden in front of my shed and behind my shed in the raised border when have a hawthorn which I am growing as a tree. We will also be planting a rowan tree in there too at some point.