Many of us have small gardens, and of course we want to make the best of them. A tree can define the atmosphere of a garden faster than anything else, and so choosing the right can be important. If you select the wrong, you can spend several years of disappointment and more years of waiting for a replacement tree will be set up.
The trees you prefer is entirely a matter of taste and personal association, but there are other problems if they grow and look into the situation you decide to jump. These are issues of soil, exposure, hardship, shade, proximity to buildings and boundaries, lines of site and the final size. With all these factors into account a good starting point is to see what grows locally in other gardens and parks. If they do so in your neighborhood, they are more likely to thrive in your garden.
You will find it difficult to find a name on a tree you like to share. Some public parks and arboretums have marked its trees, makes it much easier for you. It is also my experience that people who enjoy their own gardens happy to share advice have to ask you not afraid that the tree was named in his garden and how they are so happy. In addition, there are some excellent books and I list below three, were useful for me for many years.
The conditions in your garden.
First the ground. Some trees do not grow well in acidic soil, others not to hate in thin limestone soils, wet soils and some soils are very dry. However, there are many who are tolerant of a variety of conditions and I list a few below. You can test your soil with a kit from a garden center or send a sample to an expert organisaion as the Royal Horticultural Society.
I never bothered because I can see what works well in my neighborhood, and I know that the soil was cultivated in my garden for a hundred years and a few feet of topsoil on clay and limestone. Dig a hole test will, however, an idea of the depth of the topsoil (topsoil is the darker ground full of vegetable matter that rotten to the surface of natural soil), the amount of clay or rock-and humidity. Do not despair if you are only a few feet above the ground before the descent to have the clay or stone. Many trees grow in height and most of the roots of even large trees tend to be in the top layer.
Winter hardiness. In the UK there are only a limited number of weather conditions, but by wind or sea salt is very effective opportunity tree survival. On a continent the size of North America or Europe there is a much broader range of conditions and can thrive in the trees to extremes. The books are among you give an idea of trees for difficult Hilliers Manual principal objectives in particular offers excellent lists of trees and shrubs in many situations, and offer many different effects. Trees for a small garden (see below) indicates the climate zone maps, so you will probably survive if a tree can be assessed.
There are several groups of trees provide the habitat for species and varieties adapted to a variety of conditions and probably not more than 15-30ft high end. The most useful are probably Malus (apple, including cancer), Prunus (cherries, and a large number of trees in combination), Sorbus (Mountain Ash, Whitebeam, etc.), Crataegus (thorns) and Betula (birch). I would like to add Acer (Maples) and Salix (willow) for more specific situations. There are some conifers between these groups and so Ilex (holly) and dwarf conifers may also need consideration.Within of these groups is a great choice for many of the most valuable trees of small size.
However, since the selection is so large, you have to be done in the right direction to make your selection. If you do not have the name of a particular tree, you need to either visit an arboretum or judge other public gardens, where trees are marked for you, or do you see the trees in books or on the Internet. There are two excellent books useful for the assessment of the trees (and many other plants too).
The encyclopedia of plants and flowers from the Royal Horticultural Society published. It contains brief information about most of the most useful trees and garden plants and pictures of many of them. It costs about £ 30 but you could save all kinds of errors in the selection of plants badly.
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on The choice of a tree for a small garden
Tags: arboretums, Ash, atmosphere, Betula, boundaries, choice, clay, course, disappointment, Europe, excellent books, Garden, good starting point, ground, hole test, Horticultural, hundred years, idea, limestone, limestone soils, matter, matter of taste, name, neighborhood, North America, number, personal association, proximity, Royal, royal horticultural society, selection, share advice, size, small gardens, Society, soil, topsoil, tree, UK, variety, vegetable matter, wet soils, winter