Blog: Out with the old, in with the new!
When you’re choosing trees for small gardens, it’s much easier if you have a blank slate, rather than replacing a diseased or dangerous specimen. Why? Because you have to fit the newcomer into your mature garden, which narrows your choice and may, gulp, cause collateral damage.
This is the position I found myself in. A stately old Berberis darwinii, planted in the 1960s, was damaged beyond saving. It’s had a lot of deadwood for years, but the sparrows loved it as a lookout point at 5m tall. I imagine it was part of a shrub border next to a Viburnum rhytidophyllum. The pair became intertwined over the decades and entangled in the hedge.
The Viburnum has responded well in the past to severe pruning, the Berberis not so well. I realised a couple of weeks ago that Storm Arwen had been the last straw. There’s a 2m crack running through the trunk with jelly ear fungus growing on the deadwood. This was a three-man job to cut it down. Even though much of the interior was rotten, the surviving outer tissue was like cast iron.
I feared the Viburnum was going to end up as collateral damage. It has been saved and cut right back. The neighbouring Pyracantha has also been pruned and tied in, and the hedge renovated. What a difference! What was a dank, quite frankly depressing corner has lightened up and opened up that area.
Narrow down your choice
Now it’s time to pick suitable replacements. This is where choosing trees for small gardens becomes tricky. Don’t order the first thing you see online! I’ve spent many hours researching my choice. Always consider the site. Mine is in partial shade, although it will get sunnier the taller the tree gets. It faces east, backed by the beech hedge, so it will receive dappled sun in winter. The soil is neutral, fertile, but is relatively heavy clay, although enriched by years of leafmould.
Once you’ve worked out the area you have to play with and whether it can be successfully pruned if it gets too big, you should have a small list of suitable candidates. Then there are the ornamental decisions – evergreen or deciduous? Flowering or leaf colour? Seasons of interest?
Typically, I’ve already ordered a replacement. I’ll be getting rid of two evergreens, and I was sorely tempted to replace them with another, but I went for a deciduous tree instead. It’s Cercis canadencis Forest Pansy (North American redbud tree), a bargain in a post-Christmas sale.
Forest Pansy is an extremely adaptable large shrub or small tree. Although it can grow to 4-8m in height and width if left unpruned, it responds really well to pollarding or coppicing. Hard pruning means larger, more beautiful leaves and a more manageable size – the same as you’d treat a eucalyptus.
Choosing trees for small gardens – fiery foliage
The 12cm-wide, heart-shaped leaves are deep red-purple, turning shades of orange, bronze, red and purple in autumn, some appearing translucent. Although it’s grown mostly for its foliage, small, bright-pink flowers appear in clusters on bare stems before the leaves in spring. Flowers are followed by flat, deep purple pods.
It’s hardy to -15C, will put up with partial shade, copes with my clay soil (indeed all soil types) and any aspect or exposure. It does like moisture-retentive but well-drained soil. The only thing it hates is root disturbance, so plant it in its final location when young. When it comes to pruning, let the young trees establish for a couple of years. After that, decide in what shape you want. To pollard, a plant, cut back to 60-90cm from the ground.
Coppicing (or stooling) is more vicious, taking multiple stems back to 5-7.5cm from the ground. If you have a single-stemmed tree, prune or coppice from the top of the trunk, depending on how far you want to cut it back. In September, I’m going to underplant the tree with scented daffodils to give an early spring lift.
