Above are photos of the back of my garden before the revamp, when I had several trees that no longer exist, and some that unfortunately still do. The worst of the trees that are in or surround my property belong to next door, and they are Leylandii. I will start with them and move on to my own trees when I have finished having a rant!
Leylandii
My garden patch is not really big enough for many trees, but to the right hand side there is a row of massive Leylandii trees planted by my next door neighbour, Mr Nasty. These drain any water and goodness out of my garden on the left hand side and overshadow the whole of my garden like a ragged prison wall. They were planted by Mr Nasty when he first moved in, to surround his property and give him privacy but, because he never trimmed them until the council demanded that he did when they were over 30 feet high, they just grew upwards and didn’t thicken out to give him the privacy that he so desired.
I don’t really have any photos that show the height of these monstrosities, and I crop out as much of them as I can in most of my photos of my garden, however one can get an idea of the size of them in the photos of my old garden above. They are as tall as my Ash trees before I had them cut back last autumn, and as tall as the Eucalyptus that I had chopped down. The difference is that they form a solid wall, rather than giving dappled shade from the sun.
I used to trim off what I could reach of the overhanging Leylandii, but eventually my own garden grew to a height that obscured my sight of the bottom half of the trees, and they were partly covered by my rampant climbers Clematis montana ‘Rubens’ and Polygonum baldschuanicum. Also there was ivy climbing up from the back of both our gardens.
These Leylandii are now eyesores. Since my garden revamp, when the landscaper lopped off the overhanging branches, they have looked even worse than they did when they at least made me feel that I lived on the edge of a conifer forest. Fortunately these 30 – 40 foot high trees are on the north side of my property, or I would never get any sun in my garden.
One of the Leylandii trees, within 10 feet of my garage, with very little vegetation at its top, has a trunk the size of an old oak tree that has pushed up my patio tiles over that side of the garden with its roots, pushed back my fence and has now encroached on my property by at least two feet. My neighbour is hostile, to say the least, and has always had issues with his neighbours apparently, so there is no way he would ever listen to reason if I were to ask him to chop that particular tree down. To combat this my son has installed a decked ‘garden room’ with the back wall built of fencing two feet in from the edge of my property. I live in fear of the giant tree stump falling into the garden room in a high wind, but if it does, you can be sure I will be suing Mr Nasty.
Anyway, suffice it to say that I do not need to have any more trees on that side of the garden. Rant over!
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I don’t have many trees in my garden at all these days, although in the past the garden was dominated at one time by a huge Goat Willow that Mother Nature planted, and I allowed to grow, to find out what it was. Eventually, after chopping back annually to a fairly manageable size, it became too big to chop back and so I had it taken down. Nothing daunted, it kept on growing, sending out multiple shoots from its base, when I wound them into a wigwam shape, and kept trimming the tops off them. Some years later it was obvious to me that the whole stump needed to go altogether. The garden revamp in 2014 finally put paid to that goat willow.
Ash Trees
I also allowed twin saplings by my back wall to grow, partly to find out what they were, and to help give me some height to my new garden in the late 80’s. These turned out to be Ash trees, and have been a constant source of joy and aggro since. Joy because they gave me shade and fresh air, aggro because they kept needing to be chopped back and one of them kept dropping seeds to form little ash plants which I was constantly pulling up.
Central Conifer
This of course was only a tiny miniature conifer when it went in about twenty years ago. It was planted strategically to give me privacy years later from the overlooking bedroom windows of the house opposite in the road at the back of my garden, which it does nicely. It was starting to be useful in 2005 as the first photo demonstrates. However it is now far too big and in October 2015 I had its top lopped off, as can be seen in the second photo. Hopefully that will stop it growing upwards. If not, I will have another foot or so lopped off the top as and when it is required.
Eucalyptus
Many moons ago I bought an Eucalyptus Gunii which I was told was slow growing and would take 20 years to reach 20 feet. I just wanted it to ward off gnats, as I am prone to getting badly bitten. I also needed something to shade my aviary from the sun in the south.
The Eucalyptus tree was wonderful at first, and grew very slowly to about 10 feet tall within a few years, to give the aviary the shade it needed. In spite of the fact that I had a large pond, I never got bitten in my own garden, so that concept worked as well.
The trouble was that the tree just kept on growing, and growing, and growing…
After my husband left, who had cut it back annually, I paid a tree surgeon to cut the tree by half every couple of years, and it still kept on growing, and growing, and growing…
I cried a bit when the garden landscapers were chopping the tree down in 2014, and I couldn’t watch any more. It had been a beautiful tree. I loved the bark and the smell, and you could hear the water rushing up its trunk if you pressed your ear to it. I kept three large logs as souvenirs which now sit in the wildlife garden waiting to be colonised by whatever creatures think they might be good homes for them. The rest of the salvageable logs were chopped up by the landscapers and given to my friends with log burners.
I now have a small sapling of a supposedly smaller variety of Eucalyptus which is in a pot, and will stay in a pot, like it or not. It is positioned near my pond because I do not want to get bitten by gnats. I have chopped its branches in half twice in two years. I don’t think I will live long enough to have to watch it being chopped down.
Greengage Tree
During the garden revamp in 2014 it was discovered that a greengage from my right hand neighbour’s tree had managed to grow into a sapling against my fence. The landscapers asked if I wanted to keep it. In spite of the fact that I cannot stand the wasps that swarm around next door’s tree when the fruits are ripe, I agreed to keep it, as it was supporting a honeysuckle. I didn’t expect it to fruit yet, and if it did then I would harvest the fruit before the wasps arrived. Well that sounds okay in principal, but the mature tree next door fruits long before my sapling does, so no matter that I harvest mine, I still have to suffer the drunken wasps surrounding the fruit that fall from the tree next door into my garden. I tried to reach them myself using a step ladder, but couldn’t. I have had the overhanging branches chopped back now, but I bet I will still be invaded by wasps come August and September.
Grey Alder (Alnus incana)
A Grey Alder was planted in the front garden by the estate developers in the border between my house and Mr Nasty next door’s. Unfortunately, although I have had the tree properly cut back by a tree surgeon, Mr Nasty decided in his infinite wisdom to hack back all the branches that were overhanging his property, cutting back as far as at least a foot over my property in so doing. Now the tree looks ridiculously lopsided. When my Photinia Red Robin is of a size big enough to obscure my vision of Mr Nasty’s dilapidated, algae-covered motor boat that has not moved from his driveway for over twenty years, I will possibly have the tree cut down. It will be a shame because the catkins and seed pods attract a host of goldfinches. However, it is not a particularly attractive tree, and I would far rather have had an attractive Amelanchier like was planted in a house further down the road.
Magnolia Soulangeana
I am not sure when a shrub becomes a tree, but as my creamy pink coloured Magnolia is over 20 years old, it would be a tree by now if it had not been kept in a pot for 18 years. It was a 50th birthday present from my mother, and at the time I had no intention of staying where I lived then, so I left it in a pot in order to be able to take it with me when I moved. It lived quite unhappily in the pot all that time, never getting much bigger, but valiantly flowering every April ready for my birthday in May. It’s deeper pink twin sister that I bought myself some years later did not fare so well, even though it was in a bigger pot. I lost that well before the garden revamp.
Now the Magnolia has been in the ground for two years she has given a bigger show of flowers this year. In 2014 there were the same few as usual, as she had only been in the ground a matter of weeks. In 2015 there were double the amount and in 2016 the height of the plant had increased, as well as the amount of flowers. If she carries on at this rate she should soon resemble a small tree.
Pear Tree
This Conference Pear Tree I planted in 1988, along with a similar sized Cox’s apple tree, which died having been completely waterlogged in its infancy when Mr Nasty next door left his hose pipe on for a month to water his newly planted aforementioned Leylandii. When I bought it, the growers in a tiny nursery in Brigstock advised me to leave the pear tree in its root bag, to contain its size. I suppose that worked, because it never got very big. However, with more light after the garden revamp in 2014 it has at least borne more blossom, and in 2015 I finally had a bumper crop. Signs are that this will continue, as the blossom in 2016 was equal to if not more than in 2015.
Prunus Serrula
This tree I bought at the same time as I bought my Silver Birch in 2006. I bought it for its beautiful ragged red bark. It never did any good though. It may have been waterlogged as it was planted in the pond bog garden area, and that used to fill up with water during the rainy season. However, I had the top lopped off and side shoots are growing bigger each year. I hope I live long enough to see these side shoots mature.
Silver Birch (Betula ‘Snow Queen’)
You can read all about and see photos of my Silver Birch by clicking on this link:- Silver Birch.
Acers
In the above list I have not included my Acers. They are so small they could hardly be called trees.
- Acer negundo ‘Flamingo’
My pretty Flamingo. This was a new addition in 2015 that I could not resist. It lives in a pot currently as I cannot dig holes in my compacted earth. I am told it is suitable for a patio, so does that mean it can stay in a pot? I am also told it can be pruned and grown as a shrub and its best displays are when it has been pruned back hard in the winter.It is a beautiful variegated pale green, pink and white, delicate leaved sapling which would eventually reach 15 feet if planted in the ground. I am not sure where I would want to put it, but I love it where it is in the middle of my conifer bed where it lightens up the area in front of the large dark central conifer. I would only want it to be as high as that. It has a way to go yet. - Acer Palmatum Atropurpureum
My gorgeous crimson Japanese Maple. This was planted in the gravel by the garden landscapers very close to where my old massive Eucalyptus was situated. The massive roots were still under the ground and I didn’t expect the new little Acer to survive, but survive it has so far, touch wood.I have lost two of these in the past, that were kept in pots and did very well for several years before pegging out after a fantastic final flourish in the autumn of their last year, so I am keeping my fingers crossed. It now sits in the middle of my new log-roll summer border so it is not looking as spectacular as it did when it contrasted with its gravel surroundings where it had pride of place. Now it has competition, and company growing bigger all the time. Maybe I should dig it up and put it into a pot and keep it on the patio, but I am loathe to do that. It will be okay when it has grown to 2 meters in maybe 6 years time as it will have cleared all the surrounding plants, but in the meantime I think it will look a little out of place in the summer border.
My Garden Transformation 