I want trees round the edge like this, how?! Anyone good at identifying trees/bushes?

[Mrstumbletap]

Hi all, we are moving soon and will inherit a rectangle shaped garden with just turf.

It's not as big as the one in this picture but I love the idea of having trees/tall bushes all round the edge like this, but all year.

Does anyone know any evergreen trees that are tall and lovely or bushes that grow tall quite quickly?

All I can think if is conifers and laurel. Or Bamboo? Do you have any others or know of any good ones?

Like this

My neighbors have evergreen bushes all around the edges of their garden. They keep them big but trimmed into nice rounded shapes. It looks smart, especially in the winter when our garden is quite bare (I just love perennials and roses - but they're not great year round). Plus she doesn't have to worry about her children playing football near delicate plants.

They've got a mixture of cherry and spotted laurels, photinia, fatsia japonica, pittosporum and choisya.

Your picture looks more like mixed native, deciduous hedging. Also beautiful and fantastic for nature, but not usually evergreen.

I was also going to say it looks like a mixed deciduous hedge. The red leaves could be copper beech.

The picture you have posted is very nice - but don't plant fast growing evergreens if you want that look - it will look very different and not anywhere near as pretty as it will be boringly the same all year around. Same with bamboo, not going to get anything like the same effect.

If you want it to look like the image you need to copy the image - native UK mixed deciduous trees/bushes.

Patience is needed to get a properly beautiful garden.

@JofraArchersFastestBall I haven't heard of those ones you have mentioned (apart from laurel) thank you I will look them up.

@CottonSock ooo I like the look of copper beech, thank you. It's nice because it breaks up the green.

Thank you @carefullycourageous you are right I need patience and a new build boring rectangle garden is going to take a while to look like that.

Do you have any recommendations for UK native deciduous trees or bushes?

Google says these but will could I ever achieve the look in the first picture? Gorgeous big trees that stay leafy all year?

Images won't post but they say conifers, laurel, bamboo, eucalyptus and magnolias.

They will take a while. Some grow bigger and faster than others.

Silver birch
Beech
Hawthorne
Holly (evergreen)
Laburnum (poisonous, but many things are)
Hazel etc.

Look at a tree merchant, they'll list the trees and their speed of growth. Choose a variety of colour and shape of leaf, they'll come in at different times so there will be variety.

How big is the space? Some of these are big trees.

Oh and obviously fruit trees.

Oak is slow. The others are reasonably fast.

How big is your garden and does it border other gardens? You need to think of how big the trees will get and what effect they will have if they overgrown into your neighbours gardens.

I really dislike a lot of evergreens especially most varieties of leylandii - they are ugly, useless for wildlife, grow extremely fast and seem to sap light. They are also really boring and stay the same colour all the time.

I have a mixture of traditional more native trees and whilst most loose their leaves the trunks and branches are pretty. I have copper beech and normal beech which aren't evergreen but they do hold onto their leaves overwinter. The I also have ash, single and multi stem birch and a beautiful old oak tree. Trees take up masses of space and they need to be looked after.
If I were you I'd plant beech trees. You can keep them at a manageable height and they are very hardy to being chopped. They are also inexpensive and great for wildlife.
I planted a tall hedge about two metres in from my rear fence so I could get behind the hedge to look after it.

People who plant trees right on their borders with no regard to their neighbors are selfish.

Just planted a hedge of mixed Hornbeam and Copper Beech.
Inspiration from my late parents garden which I always loved.

"Just planted a hedge of mixed Hornbeam and Copper Beech."

That's a nice mix and what I would go for if I wanted that look, maybe with a bit of holly here and there.

Yes, you are correct about the Holly, mixes in lovely. 😀
Took lots of Holly cuttings from M&D garden and if they have taken ok will mix some in later (perhaps a year or two).

I second Beech . Purple ones are beautiful. Definitely a holly or two and Pittosporum if you're in a mild area . Also Camellias are evergreen and you get flowers . Then you could add in a few mixed Hydrangeas and maybe The taller Euporbias for Spring interest. Rosa Glauca is lovely too and offers an alternative to all green . In a mixed planting it stands nicely on its own . I'd also leave space for some summer Perennial planting to add summer colour . You could also punctuate with box and clipped yews

Have a look at this video from The Middle-Sized Garden.

Envious of your new garden and chance to plant things!

In your shoes I would want plenty of flowers on my trees, so I’d want apple/pear/plum/cherry, hawthorn, smoke tree (cotinus), magnolia and lilac. Then at a lower level some shrub/bush plants or fence climbers to fill in gaps, and my favourites are amelanchier, ceanothus, honeysuckle and buddleia.
I also think a holly would be lovely. Maybe evergreen rhododendron?

I’d also ask a tree merchant to help and suggest things - I think leafy all year would be a challenge and I’d rather have more flowering trees, but it might be possible. I love how deciduous trees change through the year too.

Ceanothus Trewithen Blue is a rather lovely tree-like ceanothus, which is evergreen and covered in blue blossom right now.

What are the actual dimensions of your garden? Some of these suggestions are very big!

Holly is lovely, but it doesn't half make your lawn a bare-foot hazard, we had one in my childhood garden, and a whole side of the lawn was permantly full of prickles. Prickle free hollies are a thing, though.

Other small evergreen things to look at could include
Arbutus Unido, the strawberry tree
Mahonia, lots of varieties, great for winter flowers
Genista Canariensis, an evergreen very pretty-leaved shrub to 3m high, which flowers golden yellow right now, bee magnet.

Big love for pittosporum tenuifolium here, there are lots of fancy kinds, but I have the basic version which has very elegant black stems, lovely fresh green leaves all year, and should reach 4m plus.

Those shrubs and trees in your photo are largely deciduous, not evergreen.

Don't plant bamboo! It can be massively invasive

Oh I forgot rowan, another fabulous tree.

Re ceanothus, they are a great option as they come in various sizes, are evergreen, and good for bees. In an old garden I had a ceanothus “blue jeans”, not the biggest variety but it grew fast, was very tough and the flowers were beautiful.

What you want is a mature hedge when they take years to develop. Fast growing trees will just mean you end up with a different thing, a load of fast growing thugs.

You can either buy larger specimen trees which are very expensive or you buy mixed native hedging and let it grow.

The one quality that gardeners need is patience. Unless you have a huge wallet.

Alison is quite right.

Yes she is.

Also second ceonothus blue jeans. Mine is beautiful at the moment

Anything with berries, like rowan, and you will spend the whole spring every year trying to pull out saplings that have grown from the fallen berries. Ditto sycamore - the keys land everywhere and root deeply and with enthusiasm!

People have mentioned holly and you could also consider yew as part of a native hedge mix to add some evergreen plants.

Hornbeam is supposed to keep Its leaves to give year round cover.

there is also a big difference in when they trees leaf, I think the hawthorn was early and the beech isn’t even in leaf yet while the cherry is in full bloom. So huge time difference in spring.