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Trees for small housing estate

wildlife, gardening, environment, Rural living, Pets and Vets
UncleIan
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#13593

Postby UncleIan » December 9th, 2016, 10:42 am

midnightcatprowl wrote:though presumably it would be best to plant during winter? It may be best to have different trees in different positions according to the size of the plot, nearness of walls, drains, etc?


Yes, definitely winter planting is best. It just lets the roots settle in while there's no demand for water from the non-existent leaves.

A bit of variety is always nice, IMO, different points of interest at different times.

colin
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#13999

Postby colin » December 10th, 2016, 7:26 pm

Hi If it's not too late I would urge you to consider native trees which provide food for our bird and insect wildlife.
ROWAN and HAWTHORN are both small trees with attractive spring blossom and autumn berries which should need no maintenance and grow to modest heights, BIRD CHERRY is a smallish tree with white blossom but do not confuse with the tall canopy cousin called Wild Cherry which is a big tree.
Buy your trees from a supplier of Native British Trees of which there are several.

midnightcatprowl
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#14084

Postby midnightcatprowl » December 11th, 2016, 10:20 am

Buy your trees from a supplier of Native British Trees of which there are several.


Can you name any of them? Supplier has been worrying me a bit, you never quite know what you'll get from a garden centre.

felixcanis
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#14154

Postby felixcanis » December 11th, 2016, 4:29 pm

The Woodland Trust has a short list of their partner nurseries.

See:http://www.crowders.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=Sorbus&order=relevance&dir=asc

This is based in Lincolnshire and has an on-line shop.

FelixC

jackdaww
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#14195

Postby jackdaww » December 11th, 2016, 7:36 pm

for anyone wishing to grow vegetables or soft fruit , ANY tree is a NO NO , and that includes neighbours trees ..

neither do roses do well under trees .

if you must , apples at least are edible , attractive , smallish on mm106 and uneaten fruit will feed the thrush family in winter .

:roll:

felixcanis
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#14214

Postby felixcanis » December 11th, 2016, 9:20 pm

for anyone wishing to grow vegetables or soft fruit , ANY tree is a NO NO , and that includes neighbours trees

I disagree - up here in NE Scotland we've grown raspberries near to Willow trees; potatoes, peas, broad beans, onions and carrots next to a row of Rowan trees. If there's enough light and sufficient water/nutrients the veg/fruit will be fine. In fact here the trees give some protection from the wind which makes veg growing outside more challenging.

I think the OP is considering planting trees on the roadside along the street - such trees would not usually interfere with veg growing actvities that are carried out in the back garden.

FelixC

didds
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#14407

Postby didds » December 12th, 2016, 3:02 pm

felixcanis wrote:I think the OP is considering planting trees on the roadside along the street - such trees would not usually interfere with veg growing actvities that are carried out in the back garden.



guerilla gardening!

didds

colin
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#14476

Postby colin » December 12th, 2016, 5:32 pm

Native trees will attract native wildlife, they won't attract gorillas for that you need David Attenborough.
For a supplier of native trees I too would recommend the Woodland Trust, to avoid possible vandalism after planting try to involve the local children.
Colin

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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#14478

Postby colin » December 12th, 2016, 5:35 pm


88V8
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#18375

Postby 88V8 » December 28th, 2016, 11:48 am

Where are you? Warm south, cold north? Seaside? Town?

BIrch can be lovely, but is surface rooting and as such may eventually become a problem. They also need more watering in dry weather, for the first few years.
Both birch and cherry respond badly to pruning, which is an oblique way of saying that they should not be pruned. Trees are only a visual asset if they are not turned into misshapen stumps by the moronic mutilation of so-called tree surgeons. You will doubtless have seen examples in gardens where sunbathing takes priority over the beauty of a tree. Lopped, topped, regrowth like a shaving brush.
One reason lime and sycamore are sometimes favoured is that they can be pruned without becoming too ugly.

Some maple may be suitable although to do well they need an acid soil - are your hydrangeas blue or pink?

Crab apples'... where we lived in Surrey there was a lovely crab over the road. Two nearby householders couldn't be bothered to use the fruit and resented having to sweep them up. Eventually they got the Council to remove the tree on the basis that the fruit were a 'trip hazard'. Never underestimate the laziness of the public.

Trees with a high wildlife value are indeed worth considering. Cob nut or hazel, will not threaten the pavement. They have a coppicing habit and will make multiple stems in an inverted cone shape. Ultimate height and spread perhaps 25ft but they never blow over, so are no threat to houses. Catkins, nuts. The spread makes them unsuitable for the street, but perhaps good for your grassed areas.

Hawthorn, lovely blossom, and supports more than 150 different insect species. Many varieties with different colour blossom. Here are some.
https://www.ornamental-trees.co.uk/hawt ... taegus-c36

When buying hollies, bear in mind it's the female that carries the berries. Golden King is a female variety.

I would beware of planting too many different trees. Sticking to a few varieties will have a unifying effect, whereas one of these one of those will create a visual dottiness. But trees of any sort are a wonderful asset to civilised living.

V8

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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#18427

Postby midnightcatprowl » December 28th, 2016, 6:03 pm

I think the OP is considering planting trees on the roadside along the street - such trees would not usually interfere with veg growing actvities that are carried out in the back garden.


Yes, that's right. The estate has some small grassed areas not belonging to any of the houses. We are anxious to maintain/improve the estate with some trees but we need trees not prone to surface rooting because of the proximity of the short narrow roadways which are brick paved.

midnightcatprowl
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#18528

Postby midnightcatprowl » December 29th, 2016, 11:37 am

Where are you? Warm south, cold north? Seaside? Town?


Bedford, Bedfordshire. Town - well suburb I suppose. Tightly packed small development of small terraced houses on a brownfield site. Soil is Bedfordshire Clay (the stuff they make bricks with) with a light top dressing of what developers refer to as 'topsoil'.

Hallucigenia
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#29163

Postby Hallucigenia » February 5th, 2017, 8:11 pm

88V8 wrote:I would beware of planting too many different trees. Sticking to a few varieties will have a unifying effect, whereas one of these one of those will create a visual dottiness. But trees of any sort are a wonderful asset to civilised living.


Coming late to this but +1 on both these points.

I must admit a hawthorn was one of my first thoughts - I know a house with an old one and it's a lovely thing. It's been pruned over the years so that there's not really any leaf below about 7', and I guess "ability to be formed into a standard" is probably a consideration for the kind of standalone use you're thinking of. But once you're there, you can have almost anything - I know a front garden which is just lawn and "lollipop" roses about 5' high, which looks amazing but is presumably a lot of work to maintain.

But I do like amelanchiers, which are a favourite of supermarkets as messy bushes - as plants they're quite tough and have pretty white flowers in spring. However they also work really well as standard trees - I know one that was planted (in rather shady conditions in heavy clay) about 12 years ago that is now about 15' high, but it's maybe half that width, it's tall and thin so might suit streetside, and the small leaves and twiggy tendency makes them quite "light" visually.

Rowans can work, but I'd extend my search to the rest of the genus - there's several native Sorbus, and a range of foreign ones, so you should be able to find one of the right shape to suit. Wild service trees S. torminalis have oodles of folklore associated with them and are good wildlife trees, but I'd guess are too big for you.

Fresh cobnuts are a thing of joy that everyone should have, the wildlife benefit is incidental - but like most hazels their instinct is to be a bit scrappy, they need pruning when young to get their shape going in the right direction.

I'm a huge believer in planting heritage fruit trees wherever possible, but recognise the problems in a shared space. One option is to have fruit desirable enough that they won't go to waste - I'm thinking figs. Interesting trees, but your soil is probably too good for them - they thrive on the North Downs where people are taking a pickaxe to bare chalk...

Another option might be a bay tree - it'd be nice to have a communal resource of bay leaves as they don't really work hard enough to justify their inclusion in the average suburban garden on visual grounds, although growing up we had one as a hedge against the wall screening the dustbins.

Also on an evergreen note, don't rule out some of the firs, which I've got a bit of a soft spot for and there's every shape and size. One could also serve as a communal "Christmas tree"....

Combining some of the above, maybe Arbutus, the strawberry tree?

And for pure autumn colour - liquidambar?

Hallucigenia
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#29197

Postby Hallucigenia » February 5th, 2017, 9:48 pm

Meant to mention magnolias, which are just glorious although "petalfall" could be a bit of an issue for the really showy ones. I grew up with a soulangeana so that's what I think of as "normal" but they come in all shapes and sizes.

neversay
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Re: Trees for small housing estate

#51454

Postby neversay » May 5th, 2017, 4:47 pm

I'm even later to this old thread but for posterity:

I asked a similar question of the head of trees at our local council and he named cherry, birch and the Bastard Service Tree (which I had to look up!)

https://www.barchampro.co.uk/trees-for- ... fastigiata


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