Carol Klein is getting to know her trees!
They’re an integral part of the Glebe Cottage garden and they make a huge difference
The garden here at Glebe Cottage is divided into two halves, or at least two parts, by a track that runs up to the cottage. Over the last few weeks I’ve written about the variety of beds and borders on the sunnier west part of the garden, but now in this new year, we’re going to cross the track and head for the shady side of the garden.
It has always been overlooked by the beech trees at its foot, which form a dog-leg from the track and round the corner. It’s a much shadier area now than it was when first we came here, partly because the beech have grown so much but also because over the last 40 years we’ve planted several trees – probably too many.
The first were a random collection I bought from a man on South Molton market. They were bare-rooted seedling trees, four alders, a couple of silver birch and one Prunus padus, the bird cherry, which I’d specifically requested. Three of the alders still remain, taller and more slender than they should be, but thriving nonetheless in the boggy area in the furthest corner.
Eventually we felled the silver birch as our soil is too wet for them and they were overshadowed by the ash and oak that form the boundary on that side of the garden and had become spindly and gangly. They stayed in the garden, though, as edging to some of the smaller beds and went to the Chelsea Flower Show one year, where they formed part of a gold medal-winning exhibit.
The bird cherry grew wonderfully until a couple of years ago, when we had to take it out. Right from the word go it had three trunks and was divided close to the ground. I should have trained it on a single trunk though it became a beautifully poetic tree, the lower part of each trunk covered in moss and its arching branches bearing cascades of tiny white flowers.
Meanwhile, water was seeping into the bole of the tree and one day the biggest trunk fell,
‘The flowers on cornus ‘Norman Hadden’ are followed by curious but very attractive pendulous fruit like red Christmas baubles’
completely rotted at its base. The other two had to be taken out and what had been a haven of shade and shelter became a clearing. Over the years we’ve planted several other trees in this area.
By far the biggest and most spectacular is a cornus ‘Norman Hadden’. When you live with trees for a long time, you develop a relationship with them. I remember bringing this tree home from Rosemoor. It was a sad specimen, a layer detached from the tree that inspired me to buy it. What a magnificent tree, in full flower you could hardly see the leaves for the wealth of voluminous white bracts adorning its branches. As the bracts age, and especially in hot weather, the white is tinged with pink. Now our tree commands a central position and can be seen from all over the garden. The flowers are followed by curious but very attractive pendulous fruit like red Christmas baubles.
There are so many flowering dogwoods to grace small gardens. Robert Vernon from BlueBell Nursery in Derbyshire mounted outstanding displays at flower shows this year that showed the gardening public what desirable trees they are.
The trees we grow on this side of the garden create the perfect conditions for some of my favourite plants. Far from thinking of shade as a problem, it offers the opportunity to grow some of the most magical plants on the planet.