7th September 2023 – Trees For All Seasons – Speaker Jim Paine

We had an excellent talk last week entitled “Trees for All Seasons”. The tree expert, Jim Paine, who ran the Walnut Tree Garden Nursery until his recent retirement, took us on a whistle-stop journey with many illustrations.

Generally, trees provide a presence and sense of permanence to any garden: whether deciduous or evergreen, they provide shelter to wildlife; they are visually pleasing in their foliage, bark and flowers; they give us food; and importantly they contribute to a greener planet, creating a microclimate of their own. We are coming up to the ideal time for planting – October-December…

Here are some of Jim’s tips on selecting your tree. A visit to the Cambridge Botanics where all trees are labelled can be useful. Consider shape: e.g. an elegant columnar Serbian spruce is very different from a tabulate dogwood or a rounded oak.  Think about the final height of your tree: oaks can be very large, birches and cherries medium, crab apple and hawthorn small, and bonsai micro! Seasonally, the Evereste crab apple blossoms wonderfully in the Spring, the Indian bean tree looks great in the Summer, acer autumn blaze has amazing Autumn colour, and again, the Evereste and its apples provides colour in the Winter. For year-round attraction go for the colourful bark of the Tibetan cherry or the striking white bark of the Himalayan birch. For sheer beauty go for magnolia virginiana. But beware vigorous Leylandii!

Avenues of trees can frame a distant view e.g. laburnum or wisteria. (Large garden needed!) Many fruit trees can be trained:  by pleaching, stepovers, a fan on a wall, or espalier e.g. pear. To provide shade plant deciduous trees and then underplant with ‘naked ladies’, anemones, brunnera or hepatica. Trees also provide a great habitat for wildlife: they provide both shelter for nests and food e.g. blue tits time their nesting season to coincide with caterpillars appearing on oak trees. 3,000 different species have been counted on a single oak tree.

Finally, choose a 6’ specimen with bare roots. Water for the first two years and mulch generously. Don’t let grass grow round your tree. Encourage mycorrhizal fungi which helps provide water to your tree roots. If staking is needed, make the stake diagonal. If pruning is necessary, the crown of a tree can be raised; deformed and diseased branches should be cut off but, before you fell a tree, check for Tree Protection Orders, and beware power saws!

 

Margaret Jackson

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