The root of the planting problem I have in my garden is roots!
Our expert Agnes Stevenson would really love to grow some new plants, but finding soil without a mass of tree roots is making her life pretty difficult.
If, like me, you live in an area surrounded by trees, chances are that you are familiar with roots. Every time I sink a spade into the soil I come across them and it can make digging out holes for new planting very difficult.
During one bout of removing shrubs from the flower border there were so many crisscrossing roots coming in from all directions that I felt as if I was wrestling an octopus.
These roots do affect my planting choices. There’s an area under mature trees where I’ve failed completely to establish Mahonias as they couldn’t compete for the water and nutrients that the roots were soaking up.
This is something worth thinking about if you are going to add trees to your garden. Small garden trees won’t cause as many issues as a mighty oak or a line of majestic beech trees, but you’ll still have to be careful when digging around them, so you don’t damage what’s under the ground.
This is particularly true with lilacs, which form a mat of dense roots very close to the surface, which makes planting anything beneath them tricky.
Yet aside from these slight annoyances, no garden is complete without at least one tree, a fact that was brought home to me a few days ago when I passed a holly in a neighbour’s garden and found myself stopped in my tracks by the noise coming from it.
Here amongst the branches were blackbirds, thrushes, blue tits and tiny goldcrests, all squabbling like bickering neighbours.
Trees bring vitality into the garden and, in the case of Sorbus vilmorinii, beautiful shade-shifting berries that start off pink in November and fade to pure white as winter approaches.
I desperately want one of
these and the only thing that has prevented me is that I haven’t yet worked out where to put it. I’m working on that, but I’ve made up my mind that before next autumn arrives I’ll have found the perfect spot.
I’d also like to grow a Stag’s Horn Sumach (Rhus typhina), even though everyone I know who has one of these complains about its suckering habit.
Yet what are a few suckers compared to the glory of this small tree’s vibrant autumn colours or the dense, crimson fruiting heads that are carried by the female plants?
And anyway, if you grow your
Sumach in grass, then mowing around it regularly should keep the suckers at bay.
Neither the Sumach or the Sorbus would take up much space. The Sorbus could reach 5m in height, but it may take 20 years and even then its delicate, feathery foliage would cast little shade. And in the meantime its branches would provide perches for all those small garden birds whose constant warblings cheer up the garden as winter approaches.