Image

Garden inspiration

spring trees

Trees for Small Gardens


🌳Top Ten Ideas for trees for small gardens

If you have a small garden, don’t rule out trees. There are many species, for example crab apples, maples and cherries that even the smallest of gardens will accommodate. It will have to work hard to justify its space and must be chosen carefully.

The following are my top ten trees for small gardens  suitable for southern areas of the UK (US Zone 9)trees for a small garden

 

  1. 🌳Japanese Cherry (Prunus) There are many varieties of flowering cherry trees and many are a great choice for smaller gardens – they cast only light shade, don’t get hugely tall and have beautiful blossom attractive to bees!  🐝 🌸trees for small garden
  2. 🌳Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum) are slow-growing so suitable for container growing and perfect for small gardens. They need a sheltered spot and a little shade.tree for small garden idea 
  3. 🌳 Amelanchier lamarckii (juneberry) is small tree with an attractive, open habit. It’s a good choice for a small garden because it has two seasons of interest. The bronze-tinged young leaves turn orange and red in autumn and in late spring it is covered in attractive white. The berries are very attractive to birds.tree for small space
  4. 🌳Dogwood  (Cornus kousa) is a lovely small tree in early summer it bears masses of tiny flowers but it is grown for its conspicuous white bracts which are just gorgeous!  When autumn arrives, the foliage turns a vibrant shade of crimson along with strawberry-like pink fruits.
  5. 🌳Espalier fruit trees if you’d like to grow fruit but think you didn’t have the space, why not grow some espalier fruit trees? Espaliers are grown on dwarfing root stocks that have their lateral branches trained horizontally, encouraging them to grow outward rather than upward. This means they take up hardly any room – perfect for smaller gardens.fig for small garden
  6. 🌳Fig tree – a ripe fig is a thing of great beauty. To grow figs successfully outdoors in the UK, it’s important to choose a hardy cultivar and plant it against a sunny wall.  To make sure it doesn’t get too big plant in a bucket in the ground. In colder areas figs require winter protection but will grow well in containers – ideal where space is limited. You can leave them the summer outdoors and are overwintered in a cool, frost-free place. crab apple for small garden
  7. 🌳Crab apples (Malus sylvestris)  is a perfect tree for a small garden. In spring, they produce clouds of blossom, very attractive to pollinators and in autumn the fruits and foliage provide rich autumnal colour and food for birds. tree for small space🌳Rowan (Sorbus) An excellent choice for a small garden as a specimen tree  is the cultivar ‘Joseph’s Rock’ which reaches about  4m in 20 years. hawthorn for small garden
  8. 🌳Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) is a wonderful choice for a small garden and one of the most wildlife-friendly trees you can grow. Native to the UK, it’s a caterpillar food plant for a number of moths, bees visit the flowers in spring and birds love the berries in autumn.  There are plenty of cultivars to choose from. idea tree small garden
  9. 🌳Arbutus unedo  (the strawberry tree) bears delicate flowers and brightly coloured red fruits that look like strawberries in the autumn.

More Ideas on Small Garden Design

For more ideas and inspiration on small garden design and using trees see our small gardens page.

Share this post