A moment with a tree……In this section I will be introducing you to trees that I feel have real value in most of our gardens. But before I do I would like to address the myth that ‘large’ trees are not suitable for small gardens. This is simply not the case! ANY tree will only grow as big as you let it. We have a relatively large garden so perhaps have room for larger trees. I do, however, have a planting bed very close to my kitchen window that has, not only trees that have the potential to get enormous, but lots of them. For instance I have an oak, currently 1.2 m tall, a western red cedar, currently 2m tall. These trees can grow to 40m with a trunk diameter of up to 3m. You might think I am quite mad to have these beasts in my garden and even worse, so close to the house! The question here is ‘in whose lifetime will these, now small, trees turn into such monsters?’…………..not mine! My little oak will barely reach the height of a standard garden fence in 15 years. It will stay tiny if you prune it each year………think Bonsai? Through our ubiquitous television gardening programmes we are constantly given suggestions of trees ‘suitable for small gardens’ and the list of cherrys, amalanchia, maples, hawthorn, whitebeam………..I could go on. These trees are no doubt beautiful and have their place but, depending on variety, in 15 years can grow to 30m or more, towering above the little oak that is patiently bobbing along quietly beside it……..now who is the beast I ask? I think the picture below demonstrates my point quite well. Both trees were planted as 1.2m saplings in 2006. The tree circled on the left is a Whitebeam (Sorbus Aria) and the other, circled on the right, is my ‘Little Oak’.
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