Stewartia - one of the finest of all garden-sized trees.

As night follows day, having blogged about how to plant a tree in my last post it seems pretty logical to follow with some suggestions as to which trees to plant.

Most gardeners obviously don’t have rolling acres to play with, and at best might only be able to make room for a couple of small to medium trees in their garden, so it’s pretty essential that any tree has to really deliver to earn it’s place. With this in mind I’ve been ruthless with my selections and have only included small-ish trees that offer multi-season interest. Aside from the beauty and appeal inherent in any tree, many can also offer various combinations of ornamental bark, flowers, foliage, fragrance, fruit, and autumn colour, as well as being appealing to wildlife, so I’ve gone for recommendations that tick as many of these boxes as possible.

Cornus kousa - tasty fruit.

I mentioned Cornus kousa – the Japanese Dogwood – a few blogs ago, and I’m going to start with this beauty here too.

Moderately sized, even at maturity, and easy to please in all but the harshest environments this supremely elegant plant definitely has a prolonged appeal.

Showy floral bracts of white, pink and cherry red slowly enlarge throughout May and June, to be followed by equally ornamental, edible, large, strawberry-like fruit in early autumn.

The show culminates with vivid displays of leaf colour in October. Lots of selections are available, but the deep pink flowered ‘Satomi’ is pretty tough to beat.

Amelanchier - autumn finery.

Flowering earlier in the Spring the Amelachiers are slender, graceful members of the rose family. There are a number of species, many of which are essentially shrubs, but A. x grandiflora is more definitely tree-like.

Commonly known as the Snowy Mespilus, throughout April the trees are smothered by delicate white or pink blooms which contrast with the new foliage that unfurls a bronze-red colour.

Sweet, purple-black blueberry-like fruits are formed in autumn and these are highly edible to humans and birds alike.

If all that wasn’t reason enough to plant one, many Amelachiers, such as A. grandiflora ‘Autumn Brilliance’, also have red, orange and gold autumn leaf colour.

Abies koreana cones.

For something completely different how about Abies koreana, the Korean fir, an easily accommodated, slow-growing conifer with a typically Christmas Tree shape.

The foliage is bi-coloured, with each needle dark green on its upper surface and bright silver beneath.

Attractive at any season this little guy really comes into his/her own when the cones start to appear – which they do on even the smallest specimens.

These are blue-violet, covered with a silvery white bloom and are held upright, looking like candles all along the branches. Just beautiful.

Arbutus x andrachnoides - the polished trunk glowing after rain.

Another evergreen, though not, this time a conifer, Arbutus x andrachnoides is a hybrid form of the Strawberry tree.

One of my very favourite plants, this has handsome, glossy, lightly serrated foliage all year round, with clusters of little white urn-shaped flowers appearing in spring, and often again in late autumn and winter.

Some of these go on to form the bright-red fruit that do indeed resemble wild strawberries, but actually the real glory of the tree lies elsewhere.

As the plants mature they form very appealing, sinuous, twisting branches, covered with papery, deep red bark which flakes away to reveal a gorgeous, deep red glossy trunk – spectacular after rainfall.

Another tree renowned for it’s bark is Prunus serrula – the Tibetan Cherry. This well known little beauty has a satin-like trunk that resembles highly polished mahogany. Although it’s far from the showiest cherry in term of its flowers or fruit, spring does see the tree transformed with a dusting of pure white blossom, plus the small, bright scarlet fruit are attractive to birds in autumn.

Malus tschonoskii - a crab-apple for all seasons.

Malus is a large genus that includes the apples and crab-apples. Many of them are well worth growing, and the best combine showy flowers and fruit with fine autumn colour.

My favourite three are the stiffly upright-growing M. tschonoskii – the Pillar Apple – with open, white flowers, red-tinted crab fruit and startling autumn colour; M. transitora, which never fails to amaze me every year with it’s super-abundance of flowers and the little orange-yellow fruit that follow, before the whole tree turns to shades of apricot in Autumn; and M. baccata, the Siberian Crab, with deliciously fragrant white flowers, equally delicious deep red fruit and, in a good year, bright red autumn foliage too.

Cercis siliquastrum.

Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ is an extremely widely grown small tree with deep purple-red heart-shaped foliage.

The species is very showy in flower in its native North America, but the British climate doesn’t quite suit it and it rarely puts on much of a show here.

I much prefer its Asian relative, C. siliquastrum – the Judas Tree. This has equally beautiful, rounded foliage but is also smothered with purple-pink flowers (there’s also an even more beautiful pure white-flowered form) in early summer, followed by elongated, bean-like seed pods that mature to an ornamental deep red.

Parrotia persica - unrivalled in autumn.

It often amazes people that a tree whose native home is Iran should do so well in overcast Britain, but Parrotia persica comes from the Alborz mountains in the far north of country, which are actually home to lush, cool upland forests.

Parrotias are well know for spectacular autumn tints, when they turn into multicoloured arrangements of purple, gold, orange and red, but the trees also have patterned, bark that flakes away in small sheets to reveal the pinky-yellow colour beneath.

A final surprise comes in the dead of winter, when petal-less deep red flowers erupt straight out of the bare stems, eventually falling to form a ruby red carpet beneath the trees.

Styrax obassia.

A real garden aristocrat, Styrax obassia almost didn’t qualify for inclusion on this list, since it can’t boast any dramatic fruit, bark or autumn foliage finery.

What is does have, though, are large racemes of beautifully fragrant, pure white bell-shaped flowers that resemble large bunches of snowdrops. These are, rather usefully, produced in summer when few other trees are doing their thing.

The other thing I love about this tree is the foliage; Pure green, almost circular, and around 20cm across, each leaf resembles a small dinner plate with a little drip-tip added on one side.

Sorbus vilmorinii - a real wildlife magnet.

Like Malus, Sorbus is another big genus of trees and shrubs, some of which are amongst the most ornamental of all garden plants.

Separated into the “Whitebeams” with large, entire leaves, and the “Rowans” with heavily divided, fern-like foliage, most of the best for garden use come from the second group. Our own native Rowan M. aucuparia is a highly attractive small tree, very appealing to insects when in flower, and to birds when laden with bright red autumn fruit. M. commixta ‘Embley’ is it’s Japanese counterpart, and adds bright scarlet autumn leaf colour to the mix. The Chinese S. vilmorinii is perhaps the pick of them all, with exceptionally fine, very heavily divided foliage that colours well in autumn and large clusters of fruit that change from pink to violet, eventually ageing to white

Stewartia psudocamellia - large flowers and bright autumn colour are seasonal, but the flaking, peeling trunks are attractive year round.

I have, arguably, saved the best to last. Rarely seen outside of specialist collections I truly believe Stewartias to be the finest of all garden trees. Close relatives of the camellias these beauties leave no ornamental stone unturned.

S. sinensis, S. rostrata, and the more frequently seen S. pseudocamellia are the three that do best in British cultivation. They all have the most gorgeous peeling, flaking, and eventually polished trunks that look like the body of some giant python, coupled with large, creamy white, camellia-like flowers, and stunning purple red and orange autumn colour.

Give them a sheltered spot in the garden, ideally in semi-shade, and they will reward you with a lifetime of year-round beauty.