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We need a new tree or two smaller trees for our front garden. There's currently a nasty little weeping cherry. While I do love a good cherry tree for many reasons, this is a stunted little specimen of singular ugliness, that has been badly cut and pruned onto a grotesque little gremlin of a tree. It has to go.
If planted towards the edge of the path, we have over 6m to a 1 storey porch and 9m to the 2 storey house. We could plant a pair of trees about 6m apart or a single tree.
I think the circles on the plan below are drawn to 5m radius.
We're in the North East so cool and dry by UK standards.
Any suggestions?
Pair of silver birch or a white and a chocolate birch?
Cherry
Ash?
Eucalyptus?
Pampas grass, obviously.
Not ash, hateful things. Last to leaf, first to drop. Bloody seeds & seedlings everywhere!
Nice pair of acers?
Out of your list I’d go cherry, lovely blossom. Acer is a good shout too, some lovely colours in Autumn depending what you go for (Japanese Maple)
Acer rubrum 'Red King'
Not too much going on until autumn then just amazing colour.
Also Betula utilis Jacquemontii multi-stem
Have a look through Majestic Trees, Barcham, Ornamental trees.
Another vote for Acer. Avoid Eucalyptus it grows quick and gets huge.
We have/had a very nice mature eucalyptus in our front garden
It was really lovely although needed quite regular pruning
Sadly it has died this summer, which we are really gutted about! A tree surgeon friend says it's been attacked by a fungus and there's nothing we could have done to prevent it, just happens.
So now we're also in the market for something to replace it, so interested to hear what other ideas people have
Not eucalyptus, they grow massive and don't provide much wildlife benefit.
can I suggest Cytisus Battandieri
Fairly evergreen. Fabulous yellow flowers that smell of cider.
I love them.
One of those and a cherry of some sort for the blossoms and maybe fruit if you pick the right variety.
Amelanchier is the usual recommendation on gardening programmes.
Your local garden centre will know the best variety for your part of the world.
None of those are particularly small trees.
Ash will likely get Chalara and die. Eucalyptus grow big and susceptible to frost damage / death.
What's the pink bit adjacent to your garden? Roots grow in all directions.
6m isn't much space for broadleaf crown development - I'd lean towards 1 tree.
Personally I'd stick a weeping purple beech in the middle of the lawn.
Rowan or Fig?
Native Rowan, with red berries, and an Acer Palmatum. I have an Acer, variety ‘Osakazuki’, which I went to a nursery in Newbury to buy, after I asked the people at Westonburt Arboretum where their trees came from.
That was probably thirty years ago now, and the little twig I bought cost me £19.
It now looks like this:
It’s a beautiful tree, I bought it for my mum as a birthday present, and it carries on her memory.
It has all my bird feeders hanging inside it, which the birds seem to like, ‘cos it gives them lots of places to Pearce while they argue about who’s got first dibs, I’m getting twenty to thirty starlings plus a whole bunch of sparrows at once now.
What is the nature and pH of the soil/ground where you are?
What types of tree are successful in your surrounds?
Where are the utility services running to supply yours and your neighbouring properties?
Would you prefer deciduous or coniferous leaf?
Dry root planting from mid/end September would be good.
Something that fruits.
What Slackalice said, plus, get to you local nursery/garden centre see what they say.
Acer is a good shout, they're all half price at the moment at most of my local Garden Centres, I'd assume that'd be the same where you are.
Just to note that a lot of Acers don't like windy locations, if that's a factor.
We've got a paperbark maple in our back garden, which is an attractive tree and doesn't get too big.
We've also got a twisted hazel, which I think is a shrub, rather than a tree but is very interesting to look at.
Grass looks like it needs cutting, patio is poorly laid and where is the fetid sex pond? (RE Flashy's suggestion)
Thanks all, lots of good stuff.
I would like a fair sized tree, but yeah, needs to not be huge.
And yeah, I need to check where services might be running across the garden before I plant in a new location.
pH is apparently alkaline-neutral (but I need a better testing kit, I don't trust mine)
There are lots of Birch, Hazel, & Cherry in nearby front gardens, hey'all safe bets and It's not a particularly windy area. I think there's an ash around the corner. We have Rowan, Hazel and a Silver Birch in the back garden, as well as lots of over-mature thorny shrubs that are being removed bit by bit.
We can see some eucalyptus from the back so kind of fancied them as we have fond memories of living in NZ and riding in the gum trees.
Haven't thought about Acers, mostly because the road is all red and wanted to add some light and greens. We are on ABCD Close and the road on our side is ABCD Walk, which has some car parking spaces for houses and allotments. They do give beautiful colour, but too much red.
Cherries are ace. Spring colour, autumn colour, oh my!
Grass looks like it needs cutting
Cut on friday, thanks.
patio is poorly laid
I'll give you that one
and where is the fetid sex pond?
In the back garden, duh. I filled it in and now it's nicely turfed.
ffnar.
The only thing I'd throw into the mix is that (assuming your picture is 'normally' orientated, ie north at the top) you're looking at planting on the S & SW sides of the house. Anything that grows to a half-descent size is likely to rob the front of the house of some daylight, particularly in winter when the sun's a bit low. Yes, I realise you said there's between 6-9m clearance to the house, but silver birch, f'instance, do grow pretty tall pretty quickly, and will cast a fair shadow.
Don't plant trees in your garden.
They're wild creatures that should be left in their natural habitat and are not happy in captivity.
When enclosed in a domestic setting they become unhappy and start developing behavioural problems like blocking all the light out from your house, shedding all their leaves into your garden and inconveniently falling over onto your house in storms.
These behavioral aberrations are only worsened if you're cruel enough to make them watch through the window as you feed their departed brethren into your STW-esque wood burner.
In short, captive trees are arseholes and you'll end up hating them before you eventually snap and murder them with a chainsaw one sunny weekend. Your neighbours will approve of the slaughter and may even help you dispose of the bodies.
Monkey puzzle. Looks interesting, and won't block too much light.
Or an aspen. Nice to see the leaves trembling in the breeze.
If ultimate size is less of a concern you could also consider Liquidambar styraciflua, generally regarded for Autumn colour, tolerates dry conditions. A couple Acer sp. worth considering are A. davidii and A. capillipes, interest across more than one season, tend not to grow too tall. Used to have a Paulowonia tormentosa, interesting foliage and will produce flowers as it matures, in the front garden of a house in Coventry, this does/did really well. Which brings up another point to consider, given the indicated planting locations you may at some time be required by the L.A. to maintain clearance over the footpath and/or highway.
I am no gardener so just saying what my experience is.... i got an m25 rootstock cherry tree 10 years ago, it blossoms lovely but it is a bit bigger than i thought it would be so have had to prune it a couple of times, it seems to get a lot of aphids attacking it most years, it is also throwing suckers up all over the place now, i have never had a cherry from it as the birds eat them all when they are green (and as its a big tree they are too high for me to reach anyway)and it drops some amount of leaves in autumn that i have to rake up.
I also have some silver birch that have been trouble free and more compact/smaller leaves so would recommend these.
My acer died years ago, i believe many are sensitive to extreme cold and bad winters.
A hawthorn ( pink or white) and a holly, year round interest and native so will attract lots of wildlife. Also slow growing and not too big.
Another vote for Paulownia. Fast growing, attractive foliage and flowers and best of all can be hard pollarded every 2-3 years to keep it in check, recovering quickly.
Another alternative is an arbutus (strawberry tree) which is evergreen.
Another vote for Walnut.
We used to have them in england but now theyre all gone, so bring it back
Cant get enough of them
We had our front garden completely redone last year. We now have a crab apple, birch, rowan and gingko. None is huge and I think the crab apple and rowan are the best ones. The gingko is just weird.
Some good and some ill considered suggestions so far.
I would say do not get anything which can grow into a large tree, so no beech or ash or any other forest trees. Cherries are very prone to various diseases and generally dying unexpectedly.
Aviod trees which set seed easily or you'll be pulling up seedlings everywhere else in your garden and your neighbors will curse you.
Aspen are very weak and will snap and break every time it's windy.
Monkey puzzle, would be a bad idea, it's a forest tree that grows razorblades for leaves.
Mattarb, Liquidambar, nice but very late to leaf and Paulownia, not sure how well it would handle a NE winter (also Arbutus) and they sucker all over the place.
If you like something productive some apples or plums. Two seasons of interest, hawthorns and the sorbus family and my own favourite, the Turkish Hazel.
If you want year round interest there are some cracking slow growing and compact conifers but take advice from a local supplier as to what works where you are.
Two apple trees 🙂
Eater and a cooker 🙂
We used to have them in england but now theyre all gone, so bring it back
Cant get enough of them
Pedant mode engaged.
No we didn't we used to not have them. Then they were brought in.
If you want a nut go native. Couple of hazel trees
what redthunder said. it's what we've got! Fair bit of work, though.
If you for a walnut, don't get a black walnut. they're pretty selfish and can poison nearby plants.
Don’t plant trees in your garden.
They’re wild creatures that should be left in their natural habitat and are not happy in captivity.
Some of them, maybe, but an interesting point. When our son was born, we were given a seedling of a tree with the same name as him. Proper big forest tree. What to do with it? If we plant it in the garden, there's a great chance that someone living there after us will decide it's too big and kill it. If we plant it up on the common, there's a good chance it will be eaten, or someone will decide it's too big/ in the wrong place and kill it. If we want to control its chances, we could keep it in a small pot, clip its growth in all areas so we can take it with us wherever we go. But what sort of life is that for a tree?
Oh, the metaphors...
Thanks again all, I've had a good chat with the MiL who is a keen bean gardener with extensive knowledge, I need to consult my documents to see if two trees is a possibility and will maybe post a shortlist, or maybe just post the results next summer.
Apple tree or two going in the back garden anyway 🙂 maybe a plum also.
Hazel is a good shout that was on our list too. (if you'll let me hop on a hazel twig, I'll beckon my friend...)
As for a tree in a pot, I have a tiny little oak that has travelled round many flats with me. It's maybe only 75 cm tall. It's a happy little tree, has seen much more of the world than its ancestors.
How about a couple of these? Might start feeling a bit peckish in the budding season.😉
hawthorn.
blossom in spring, berries in autumn and winter.
they look great, they don't get huge, great for wildlife.
Zelkova Serrata would be a good choice, late to leaf out, nice lime green summer foliage and stunning Autumn colour.
Portugal Laurel. Have a look at the website for Ascott House near Leighton Buzzard. They have a drive way with these on each side which looks amazing.
Out of your list I’d go cherry, lovely blossom.
Cherry trees are beautiful but the roots like to dig up paths, foundations etc so don't plant too close to anything you want to keep. We planted one and still need to move it after being told twice by different tree surgeons that it's way too close to the house.
We had a fig planted up against the house. In researching implications for the house, I came across a Turkish curse: "You knowingly planted a fig next to my house!" (= you *****d me over)
johndoh, how close was that?
I think the mary jane and hawthron aren't family friendly enough 🙂
@rotorstern has it! Praise the Herb! 😁
I think the ... hawthron aren’t family friendly enough 🙂
why would you think that?
thorns? cut them off, an easy job and they don't grow back. fwiw, as a nipper i climbed in dozens of hawthorn trees.
We used to have them in england but now theyre all gone, so bring it back
Where do you get that idea from! I was out for a walk today and saw a tree exactly like the one below, in the garden of a cottage. It’s a walnut tree.
