It’s best to be barking
With summer’s foliage stripped back, trunks get their time to shine
ANOTHER layer of garden interest disappears with the wind as deciduous trees finally shed their beautiful autumnal leaves, only to reveal the garden’s final gift... the beauty in the colour and form of stems and bark.
The bare framework of plants is on show from late November and the picture book of our seasonal garden turns over a new page.
Tree bark is an enormous area of garden interest, with differing textures, colours, shapes and forms suddenly appearing from behind the clothing of foliage.
This morning in my garden the low winter sun shone warmly, and nude stems and trunks created quite the spectacle. The very ordinary birch transformed into a winter star of the garden.
I’ve often written about a ribbon of white stemmed birch – Betula Jacquemontii – leftovers from a Chelsea garden of almost 15 years ago which are planted in front of the house. They’re one of my favourite trees, useful for small and medium sized spaces as they don’t get too big, and thrive in most soils and aspects.
Another special tree is Quercus suber, the cork oak.
This is the tree from which cork stoppers for wine and cork flooring are made and it’s grown for this purpose in large plantations across Spain and Portugal.
Unusually the tree is not harmed by the stripping of its spongy bark – it will renew and the bark can be harvested again in around nine years and the tree will keep growing for 250 years!
It’s an evergreen oak with a wonderful rounded canopy and it’s a lovely ornamental tree for larger gardens.
Also evoking summer holidays in the Mediterranean is the stone pine, Pinus pinea, which has heavily fissured reddish bark. It’s where we get those delicious pine nuts for our pesto sauces and is a majestic tree with a spreading crown that becomes flat topped and parasollike in maturity. It’s a wonderful tree to grow if space permits.
Prunus serrula is sometimes known as the mahogany bark cherry, which refers to its extraordinary glossy coppery brown bark that is revealed when the old bark has peeled off. It’s a medium sized tree, growing to around 15 feet at maturity. The spring blossom is not so showy as other flowering cherries but its bark is worth looking out for at this time of year.
For smaller gardens I recommend Acer griseum, known as the paper bark maple, as its chestnut coloured bark flakes away gradually to reveal a stunning deep orange to red bark underneath.
Though it will in maturity reach 25 feet or more, it’s very slow growing and is still no more than six or seven feet high in my garden after eight years. It’s a beautiful specimen tree that provides lovely autumnal foliage as well.
If your space is limited, dogwood shrubs are very vibrant in winter. In leaf and flower they are unremarkable but when their bare stems are revealed you can appreciate the vivid colour.
Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’ is the bright red one and looks great paired with Cornus flaviramea, which has yellow-green stems.
‘Kesselringii’ has blackish purple stems and will complete the colourful trio, any of which could be grown in a pot for a winter garden on a balcony or courtyard.