Planning a new look for your garden this year?
Trees are ‘IN’!
Many of us will have more demands on our time and resources this coming year than ever before. Yet at the same time, the need to have an attractive and relaxing outdoor garden will be ever greater.
The solution is a tree garden! There are lots of tree species to choose from including trees for a small garden. The benefits of trees in your garden are many. . . .
- Trees offer year round colour and interest
- Trees need little care and maintenance
- Trees bring a sense of tranquillity
- Trees are great for enhancing mindfulness
- Trees are environmentally friendly
- Trees bring wildlife and birds
- Trees add height to your garden panorama
- Trees provide shade and shelter
- Trees soak up pollution
- Trees add kerb-appeal
- Trees add value to your property.
Flowering. Fruiting. Foliage. These are the key features which will bring year-round colour and interest to your garden, allowing you to follow the seasons and keep in touch with the rhythm of the natural world.
Many trees produce delicate, attractive and abundant flowers providing a dazzling display of colour, often in springtime but at other times of the year too. Cherry blossom trees are a prime example of springtime glory!
Summer, autumn and winter showcase fruiting trees with bright red berries and a rainbow mix of coloured fruits. There is also the possibility of bringing culinary interest into the mix. Holly trees and Rowan trees produce beautiful red berries which will last for months at the back end of the year.
But foliage has to be the key aspect of any tree garden. Choosing a mixture of evergreens and deciduous trees will ensure year-round delight. Consider the range of leaf textures and shapes, from palmate to needles, from spiky to pendulous. And the colour range of foliage is almost unbridled: mostly reds and greens for year round colour, but when autumn comes you can add in bronze, orange, burgundy, sienna, yellow, copper, gold and russet to the colour palette.
Work with any trees you have already, and then think about choosing to plant a tree or two to balance your layout. Take advice on which trees to pick from the RHS website or consult your local tree expert.
