A GARDEN WITHOUT A TREE IS NO GARDEN AT ALL
Monty Don’s planted hundreds of trees in his garden, and says they’ve not only markedf amily milestones, but given him intense pleasure as they’ve grown
When we first came to this garden 28 years ago to the day, it was an empty field bounded by a scruffy, gappy hedge. I say empty, but in fact there were two trees — a hazel near the back door and a hawthorn, bent almost sideways by the wind. Both are still here, growing well, but today are accompanied by hundreds of other trees, most of which now dwarf these two originals and most of which I bought almost by accident.
Back in April 1993, after much building work and planning of the garden, I was ready to start planting in earnest. The local paper advertised an auction of all trees growing at a local nursery so I went along specifically to buy some yews for the front garden. I set my budget at a strict, nonnegotiable £200 — because that was absolutely all we had in our bank account.
So I duly bought some yews, had a little of my budget to spare and, to cut a long and deeply irresponsible story short, went on bidding into the afternoon. At the end of the day I found I had bought 1,100 trees and spent £1,400! Somehow I got the cheque covered and a pantechnicon delivered my new forest later that week. These became the bones of my garden, providing hedging plants, pleached limes and an avenue, as well as stand-alone trees, and I confess I regard it as one of the best investments I have ever made. Not only did it make for ridiculously cheap trees, but I’ve also derived years and years of intense pleasure from just watching them grow.
And the trees grew not just with the garden but with my family. At first they were as spindly as broom handles, but very quickly they created height and stature. Soon some were strong enough to take a hammock or a swing, and it was a momentous day when the biggest tree was large enough for my son to climb. Eventually, after about ten years, one of those slender saplings became big enough for a treehouse.
Half the pleasure of planting any tree is seeing it grow rather than waiting for it to become a ‘proper’ tree. Real gardeners know that no such thing exists. Gardening is not about creating the perfect finished horticultural stage set, but about growing things — nurturing them and sharing their slow evolution into maturity. Over the past few years we have been cutting down some of those early trees I planted to let more air and light in to the rest of the garden. That is all part of the change — and every scrap of the fallen trees is used, from logs for the fire to wood chip for paths.
Unless you are extremely rich or extremely impatient, it always makes sense to plant trees small. My basic rule is that bare-root
trees should be small enough to be lifted by one strong person and containerised trees should be able to be carried by two people. In fact, I could lift and carry most of the trees in my garden with one hand when I planted them, and some are now 15m tall with trunks as thick as a barrel.
There is no reason not to plant a tree — or trees — in any and every garden. Trees come in all shapes and sizes and at all stages of their growth. There are tiny yet exquisite Japanese maples and tall, yet
slender fastigiate trees (with branches growing vertically, close to the trunk) with upright growth that are especially useful in a smaller garden that cannot accommodate the full canopy of a large spreading tree. Trees can weep, spread sideways, have a dense tangle of branches or be pruned to perfect, spare shapes where the spaces between branches sculpt the air. Trees can be pleached (by lacing the branches along a framework) and coppiced (regularly cut back), espaliered (grown horizontally) or cordoned (grown as a single upright stem) and, if you have the space, left to grow gloriously as they wish to be. Trees can flower and carry edible fruit or nuts or decorative berries. Trees can have rich autumn colour or sparkling new spring foliage. Trees can drop their leaves each year or be evergreen. In short, there is a tree for every garden and every person.
A garden without trees — planted deliberately as things to be enjoyed from the first day — is a garden unfulfilled. We tend only to measure our gardens across two dimensions, but the third — up — is just as important, and almost every garden can accommodate very tall plants indeed, however limited their ground area. I know that some people feel that their garden is too small to take a whopping great tree towering over their house, shading out all the other plants, the roots breaking all the drains and the whole thing just waiting to come crashing down on the house at the first hint of a wind. But the chance of any of these things ever happening is very remote, and they certainly won’t occur in the lifetime of you or your children. One of the basic rules of garden design is that large objects make a small space seem bigger and a large space smaller. So a small garden with a single, medium-sized tree will actually seem bigger as a result.
When choosing a tree it can seem that the choice is bewildering. First of all, look around your immediate neighbourhood and see if there are any trees that you particularly like the look of and which seem to be growing healthily (and if they look healthy they almost certainly are healthy). This will inform you what is best adapted for your soil and area and therefore what will thrive in your own garden. Secondly, try to visit gardens with a good selection of mature trees.
I’ve recommended my own favourite garden trees overleaf, but there are, of course, many more to choose from. So work out what you like, and what would be happy growing in your garden. Then go for it!