Autumn pruning: trees and shrubs

Best Fruit Trees to Plant in Autumn

Autumn is a great time to plant fruit trees. Find out how to get a great crop of juicy fruit by spring time with our top tips.

How to care for trees in late summer

Late summer provides the perfect time to give your trees and shrubs some extra care to ensure they’re in top shape for the autumn season.

Let the grass grow: a wild(er) garden to support wildlife

Perfectly manicured lawns are beautiful, there’s no doubt about that, but we need to question the impact of frequent grass cutting on our wildlife. 

Making your winter garden glow

This post is all about making your winter garden glow so that you can enjoy your garden all year round. Winter is not a season usually associated with the garden, but with a few carefully selected trees, your winter garden can offer great pleasure, even if you do choose to admire it from inside. Winter flowering trees are an obvious choice for winter interest and they come in all shapes and sizes. If you have a small garden, you can’t go wrong with the simply stunning ‘Prunus Snow Showers’: as the name suggests, the snow-white flowers cascade down the weeping branches, giving the perfect floral vision of beauty over winter. The ‘Snow Showers’ is also compact, so you can plant it in a large pot on a patio if you’re short of space. Another small tree, although certainly larger than the ‘Snow Showers’, is ‘Prunus Autumnalis Rosea’. This outstanding tree offers a stunning floral display of semi-double pink flowers that hang from the branches over winter. The candyfloss-pink flowers almost look out of place in winter, but that adds to their ‘show-stopping’ effect and makes them all the more precious. If you want a truly unusual flower, the Hamamelis, or Witch Hazel, is unrivalled. The flowers are comprised of colourful petals that resemble ribbon and most varieties are scented. Choosing which Hamamelis to plant can be difficult as they all offer such varied colour, but we love the burning red colour of the ‘Hamamelis Diane’ as it adds a firey burst of life to your outdoor space. You can also get trees that hold their fruits over winter: this has a double benefit of looking great and also being a natural bird feeder during the colder months. ‘Mauls toringo ‘Scarlett’ is one such variety and the glossy scarlet-purple fruits add a wonderful splash of colour over winter. Equally, for fruits that change as the winter months press on, the ‘Cotoneaster Exburiensis’ features apricot-yellow fruits in autumn that take on pink tints over winter.  Of course, evengreen trees offer year-round interest as the glossy foliage provides a steady dose of colour; you can utilise evergreen trees as backdrops for winter flowering trees, as the flowers really stand out against the foliage. The very large, dark green, waxy leaves of the ‘Magnolia Grandiflora’ make the perfect foil for a winter flowering tree like the ‘Prunus Autumnalis’. If you want colourful leaves, look no further than the Photinia ‘Pink Marble’: this cousin of the ever-popular Photinia ‘Red Robin’ is a real delight in winter as the green foliage is marbled with a vivid pink and white variegation. Some deciduous trees have a lot to offer in winter, too. In fact, varieties like the Betula ‘Snow Queen’ are widely planted for their stunning bark: the ‘Snow Queen’ has the most beautiful white bark that sparkles and shines over winter. Equally, trees that have an unusual shape or structure can become a fantastic architectural feature in winter: one such tree is the highly unique Salix 'Erythroflexuosa', also known as the Golden Twisted Willow. The corkscrew-like branches are red when young and mature to a golden green colour. To make your garden truly glow, cover the branches in solar-powered lights and admire the contorted skeleton of this distinctive tree. If you have any suggestions for winter interest, let us know. We always love seeing pictures of your garden and you can post them on our Facebook page.

A beginner’s guide to growing fruit trees

There’s nothing more rewarding than enjoying the crop from your very own fruit tree, and yet so many of our customers avoid planting fruit trees for various reasons: some say that it’s too difficult and others say it will require too much maintenance, but this blog post is all about dispelling the myths and giving you all the advice you need to start growing your own fruit. We want to make one thing clear: planting a fruit tree does not mean compromising the ornamental value of a tree. So many fruit trees have decorative foliage or showy flowers, that you actually get the benefits of an ornamental tree with the bonus of your own crop. Believe us when we say that you’ll never look at supermarket fruit in the same way once you’ve tasted your own home-grown fruit. Key information The first thing that you need to know is that some fruit varieties need pollination partners to be planted nearby in order for them to produce a crop. This post recommends a range of fruit trees, some of which need pollination partners, but as this is a beginner’s guide, we have also included some recommendations for trees that are self-fertile, meaning that they won’t need to be planted near a suitable pollination partner and will produce fruit without pollination from another tree. The second thing that you need to know is what a ‘rootstock’ is. Essentially, fruit trees come in different types, called rootstocks, and each rootstock has different qualities. For example, you can have a Braeburn apple tree on different rootstocks, and you can pick a rootstock based on what you want from your fruit tree. Some rootstocks are ‘dwarf’ so that the tree remains small, others are more vigorous, and some are used for their disease-resisting abilities. You can find lots of information about rootstocks on the RHS information page by following this link.  Finally, in order to keep your fruit tree healthy, we would recommend applying some mulch after planting. Mulch is a covering which goes on top of the soil and it has many benefits, including: retaining moister in summer, suppressing weeds and improving the soil texture. We would recommend wood chippings or compost, but you can find a more information on mulch and its benefits here.  Now you know the basics, you need do make the big decision of what to pick. Best for smaller gardens: If you’re short of space, you can’t go wrong with a G5 ‘Stella’ cherry tree. To explain that a little more, G5 stands for Gisela 5 and it’s a dwarf rootstock, meaning that the eventual size will be around 3m high and around 2.5m wide: perfect for a small space. You will need a sunny spot for this cherry to thrive and, ideally, some shelter (planting it near a south facing wall would be ideal). The best bit about the Prunus ‘Stella’ is that it’s self-fertile, so you don’t need to worry about having a pollination partner. All our trees come with a planting booklet, so you can follow the step-by-step guide to planting your new tree when it arrives. Best for a heavy crop: If you have a little more room and want something that’s a heavy cropper, go for a ‘Scrumptious’ apple tree on the M106 rootstock; this rootstock is semi-vigorous and it is widely used for its ability to thrive in poorer soils. Scrumptious apples are renowned for being one of the tastiest dessert apples around, and they taste even better when they’re fresh from the tree. The ‘Scrumptious’ is in pollination group 3, so you could plant it with Malus ‘Crispin’ for a bumper crop. As with most apple trees, Malus ‘Scrumptious’ produces delightful flowers in April and May: the white flowers have a pink blush to them and add interest during late spring. If you would prefer a pear tree, the wonderful ‘Conference’ pear tree is certainly worthy of planting. This is a partially self-fertile tree, meaning that it will produce fruit without a pollination partner, but if you want it to fulfil its heavy cropping potential then plant it alongside another variety like the ‘Williams Bon Chretien’ for cross-pollination. The fruits of the ‘Conference’ are absolutely delicious and you can watch them grow over summer and pick them in late September: a real autumnal treat! Easiest to grow: Not only is the ‘Lapins’ cherry tree an easy one to grow, it also produces the most divine dark red-black fruits. Lapins is a self-fertile variety and it produces a good crop with very little effort. Once you’ve planted your tree in a sunny spot, make sure you keep it well-watered and that you apply mulch to retain the moisture. The fruits will be ready for picking in July: avoid pulling the fruit when you pick them and instead pick them by the stalks (to avoid bruising). You can enjoy your cherries fresh or store them in the fridge for 1-2 weeks. If you see any branches that need pruning, do so from late July (after crop) until the end of August. Then all you have to do is keep the tree well-watered when it’s dry and wait for the next lot to appear the following year! Key things to remember: The sweeter the fruit tastes, the more sun it will need If you’re short on space, choose a self-fertile variety Keep your tree well-watered and make sure it doesn’t try out at all Choose a rootstock that is appropriate for your garden’s size Now that you’ve got all of the essential information, get choosing! We would also love to hear from you and see pictures of your first crop.  

Creating a sensory garden series – smell

When we think of sensory gardens, scent is usually the first thing on our minds. Whether you catch the drift of a sweet floral fragrance or the more sharp smell of herbaceous plants, scented trees and shrubs can be a real sensory treat. We would recommend planting scented trees and shrubs near a seating area so that you can unwind with the drifting fragrances; alternatively, plant your scented shrubs along the edges of a path so that they can greet guests as they pass by. Flowers Different flowers, big and small, have different scents. Some are sweet, light and fruity and others are much more pungent and heavy. Either way, flowers are a great way of filling your garden with fragrance. Flowering trees If you have room for a tree, one of the most deliciously sweet fragrances has to come from the Cytisus battandieri, which is more commonly known as the Pineapple broom tree. This Morrocan native has vivid yellow flowers that smell like cooked pineapples: a real treat for the senses! Prunus ‘Fragrant Cloud’ is a prolific flowerer in spring and the flowers do not have the usual light fragrance of a flowering cherry tree, but instead they have a much stronger and richer floral scent. Of course, we can’t not mention magnolia flowers in this category; magnolia flowers are large and have a bold fragrance that varies between different varieties. Flowering shrubs If you want a fragranced shrub then an unusual choice comes with Hamamelis mollis - Chinese Witch Hazel. The striking yellow flowers appear in winter and have a strong fragrance; if you want to achieve year-round interest then this is the perfect plant. Viburnums are another winning winter option for fragrance and the flower heads have a light, often honey-like, scent. Perhaps one of the most obvious choices is planting a lavender, but it should not be over-looked as it is highly popular for a reason. The deep-violet flowers are aromatic and attractive to the senses of both humans and insects alike; we really like lavenders surrounding a seating area as you can sit back and soak up the scent whilst insects and bees flock round the flowers. Foliage Foliage is often aromatic, rather than sweet, but it can be a real delight to walk by on a windy day. One of the classic choices for aromatic foliage is the Laurus nobilis, also known as the Bay Laurel. The bay leaves are a popular choice in a herb garden and they smell even better when you pick one up and crush in it your hand. Equally, another popular plant is rosemary and we sell Miss Jessopp’s Upright’ which has a pungent scent and is great for planting in a rockery. Rosemary has many benefits and is proven to reduce levels of the stress hormone, cortisol. As well as that, rosemary repels mosquitos and other garden pests so it really will work wonders for your garden. If you’ve got room for a larger option, a eucalyptus tree can add structure, colour and foliage fragrance; the rounded leaves have a light menthol-like scent which is accentuated further when the leaves are crushed. No matter what you choose, planting a few fragranced trees and shrubs can make your garden all the more inviting for both you and for wildlife.