by James Alexander-Sinclair
The other day there was a tweet from Gardeners' World regarding a post I wrote on this blog a couple of years ago, about my top five trees for small gardens.
The other day there was a tweet* from Gardeners' World regarding a post I wrote on this blog a couple of years ago, about my top five trees for small gardens.
While I still stick with those five I thought I might try and add a further five just in case anybody out there was wandering around looking for such a thing. So, here then, are another five trees…
Arbutus unedo, the strawberry tree: so called after the round strawberry-coloured fruit. You can eat the fruits but they're not a patch on a real strawberry, or even a Hobnob. It is, however, evergreen and has fine cinnamon-coloured bark. In this picture you can just see the white hanging bell flowers as well. (Apparently the name comes from unum tantum edo, which means 'eat only one' in Latin.)
Malus 'Red Sentinel': one of the finest crab apples with sensational autumn colour and jewelled clusters of small red apples that cling on long after the leaves have fallen. The blossom is a fine pinky reddy white in spring.
Acer davidii, the snake bark maple: as the name suggests, the green stripey bark is as slinky smooth as Leslie Phillips in his prime. It also has greeny white flowers in the spring and dramatic yellow autumn colour. There are a number of other acers with the same snakey bark, including A. capillipes and A. grosseri.
Cornus florida: a dogwood, but a long way from the red- and green-stemmed varieties we plant for a splash of winter colour. This one is a stunning plant that has green flowers surrounded by white bracts. These look like petals but technically speaking are not - a bract is a modified leaf which is often much more spectacular than the actual flower. Sadly it does not do well on chalky soils.
Pyrus calleryana 'Chanticleer': an oddity in that this is a pear tree that produces no edible pears. But it is still well worth growing as the blossom is truly sensational and the leaves turn the colour of plums and bruised cranberries. It gets to about 15m which is bigger than the others, so perhaps your small garden had better not be too small.
Maybe I'll think of another five in a couple of years time.
PS You will have noticed that the picture at the head of this blog is of silver birches. I didn't have room for them this time but thought I would put the picture up as a hint … Betula jaquemontii is another good option!
* For those not au-fait with such things I am talking about Twitter, something that is difficult to explain at the best of times and probably inappropriate in a garden blog. Suffice to say that it is an interesting, entertaining and (occasionally) informative way to pass an idle moment.
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