Five Small Trees For Your Yard
Trees are an important part of your garden. They help to filter the air and they help to shade and cool your back garden. They also provide canopy for wildlife to live in. Trees are best planted spring and fall. I'm going to show you five trees for a small garden that will work. They won't take over your garden but they will help to sort of provide canopy, cool your back garden and be nice to sit under.
Stewartia Koreana
Our first tree is Stewartia Koreana. It Is a wonderful, small garden tree. Grows to be about 20 to 30 feet high by about 15 to 20 feet wide. It's not a hugely fast grower. In the wintertime, when the trees are mature, you can see that beautiful shredding bark. As they mature, they will get beautiful white camellia
type flowers, in end of May beginning of June. The fall colour is spectacular on these. Just a really lovely small tree all around.
Parodia Persica or Persian Ironwood Tree
Next is Parodia Persica, or Persian Ironwood tree. It is a beautiful small tree.
It's really hardy. You'll see it in some of the White Rock plantings of street trees. It has a really interesting flower, late winter, early spring, very witch hazel like and then beautiful green shade tree. Quite hardy and the fall colour is absolutely spectacular. You have bright reds, burgundies, oranges almost hot pinks on the same tree at the same time. They're really quite stunning in the fall as well. It's just a great all-around tough tree to have in your garden.
Syringa Pekinensis Copper Curls Tree
Syringa Pekinensis Copper Curls is actually a lilac but a tree lilac. It has beautiful ivory-coloured blooms in Spring and it has this absolutely fantastic shredding cinnamon coloured bark in the winter. So you get the effects of almost a Canoe Bark Birch or a Copper Birch and you have wonderful flowers as well. So it's a great small tree for your garden about 15 to 20 feet tall and about 15 feet wide. Great for the small garden.
Cercidiphyllum japonicum or Katsura Tree
Next is Cercidiphyllum japonicum or Katsura Tree. It is a beautiful delicate tree for the garden. You have these wonderful little oval, almost heart-shaped leaves that tremble with the slightest breeze, like, you're Trembling Aspen. In the early spring when the leaves come on, they go through a number of colour changes. From burgundy then to rust and then fade to green with these red pedials. In the fall you have that colour change, again, you'll get red, yellow, orange on the same tree at the same time. It's just a wonderful tree. For this baby though she is a bit of a diva when it comes to water. So, just make sure you give her lots of water during heat spells, or mulch underneath.It is an absolute worth while tree to have in your backyard.
Liquidambar styraciflua or American Sweetgum Tree
And last on our list of small trees that provide shade for your yard, is Liquidambar styraciflua or American Sweetgum, the variety is Worpelsdon. This is a really fantastic trouble-free tree for your medium to small garden. The height on it is about 30 to 40 feet and it's about 20 feet wide. So it's a nice upright, oval the fall colour on this is glorious, a deep rich burgundy colour and the leaves hang on for a long time. On some, the leaves will hang on all winter long and will get pushed off by the Spring new growth. The fragrance of these leaves when you crush them is really strong, eucalyptus smell. It's just a wonderful tree aromatic to have in your garden.
Watering Trees in British Columbia
One last thing I want to talk about is the importance of taking care of your trees in the summer, in B.C.. We've had a lot of heat, a lot of drought stress on trees. If you have street trees, please do water them in the summer. Very important, if you have a small business and you are noticing your trees, by your office door are suffering or the parking lot trees. If you can, if you can give them some water. If we can all do our part, we will keep these really important trees alive. Thank you.