Planting Trees for Small Spaces
Trees and shrubs are popular additions to a great many garden, they can serve as a backdrop to virtually any garden, the more interesting species are useful as a focal point in most gardens, they can also be used to create a privacy screen and there are many other reasons why trees are so popular in landscape gardening. So what do you do when you only have a small space in which to create a garden? This article looks at the subject of trees for small spaces such as small back yards.
Great care must be taken when choosing which trees to grow in your garden especially if you are, in the case of small spaces, you are planting them near to your house. You should always ensure that you allow sufficient space for them to grow and, as it grows, you should prune all suckers and deadwood to make sure that it maintains it's natural shape. It is extremely important that you do not prune your trees to force a large tree into a small space unless you know exactly what you are doing. Under no circumstances must you chop off the tops of trees, especially in an attempt to keep them small.
When gardening in small spaces it is very important to take extra attention to the immediate surroundings. You must closely inspect both your own garden, yard or backyard and those of your neighbors to both sides and also to the rear. Watch out for overhanging roofs, electrical wires, telephone cables or anything else that is close to where you are planning to plant trees. Keep in mind that you should allow at least 6m (20ft) in height for the growing space of your tree and try to keep your choice of trees and shrubs to those species which will not exceed this height.
Choosing Trees for Small Spaces
When looking around nurseries it is difficult to resist admiring some of the wonderful trees and nothing can be more pleasing than a young weeping tree. Weeping trees, while looking absolutely brilliant, can be a bit of a pain to care for, it isn't a simple case of planting them and watching them grow to maturity, oh no, there is much more to consider! Some varieties of weeping trees can grow to incredible heights, way beyond the suggested height limit mentioned above. Furthermore such trees, being grafted, will send up shoots from the grafting point, if you do not regularly prune them your tree will soon begin to look rather messy.
Got a small space then, plain and simple, you have no choice but to think small. Dwarf conifers are an excellent choice when gardening in small spaces. They are available in a surprisingly wide choice of color, from various shades of green to a golden color and even blue. Be careful when choosing dwarf conifers as some trees are sometimes sold as a dwarf conifer but they are, in reality, just very slow growing conifers which will, eventually grow to maturity and a large size. With true dwarf conifers you have to watch out for the occasional leader thrown out which has reverted back to the natural form of the species, these should be pruned out to maintain the correct dwarf size.
More about growing trees is small places below, after this video presentation
The Dwarf Korean Lilac (Syringa meyeri Pablibin) is one of those incredible trees which looks and smells wonderful. It blooms from May to June with lavender florets with a pink tinge which smell awesome. To make this dwarf tree almost perfect you should witness another, lighter, flowering towards the end of summer which should last into fall when the foliage changes to a bright shade of yellow. However the most exciting quality of this tree is that it only grows to about 5ft in height and width.
Other trees and shrubs have aspects which add interest such as ornamental or decorative bark, with the coralbark dogwood (Cornus sericea) and the paperbark maple (Acer griseum) being just two fine examples. Other dogwoods are suitable trees for a small space, such as the Westonbirt dogwood (Cornus alba 'Sirbirica'), and several other maples, such as Japanese maple (Acer palmatum cultivars) and the full-moon maple (Acer japonicum), are well worth consideration.
In later articles we will list a few more trees that should be suitable for growing in small backyards and small city gardens so why not bookmark this page and call back soon?
See also: Compact Fruit Trees for Small Spaces
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