Trees bring benefits to the garden

It was a sad day. A newly moved-in homeowner rang the death knell for two enormous, mature spruce trees that had occupied the same space since before a house and garden was ever even a thought in the original landowner’s mind, back at the turn of the 20th century. Of course the new homeowner has every right to make that decision about those trees but this story is indicative of a trend that seems to be currently sweeping the UK. Decades, if not sometimes hundreds of years’ growth, are being decimated in a single day by (often) new homeowners who only see potential problems with trees and not their many benefits. Add a ‘potential problem’ to a ‘disposable world frame of mind’ and the result is not going to be a favourable one for many an existing tree.

But we would urge anyone to reconsider that decision to fell a mature tree. Even ignoring the proven wider environmental benefits of trees on our urban environment (an article for another time) – and privately owned trees often constitute more than half of the tree cover in UK cities – from a purely ‘garden design’ perspective the mature trees inherited with a newly acquired garden usually bring fantastic opportunities and benefits with them.

Being able and open to considering what they can offer is half the battle. Assuming they’re healthy and sound, we’d recommend living with inherited trees for at least a year before making any decisions about them. Watch them throughout the seasons and consider what they bring to the garden at different times of the year, in different conditions. So for instance, notice things like colour, fragrance, flowers, height, shade, structure, fruit, wildlife, movement, sound, view… all of these things add to the ‘feel’ of a garden (and in many circumstances were actually part of the reason why you loved the house and garden in the first place!).

Inheriting mature trees is like starting a new relationship – it’s worth getting to know them before ditching them! Oftentimes, the things that you weren’t sure of to begin with become the very things that you grow to love about them, or even if you don’t love some things the other things that you love about them overshadow and far outweigh the things that you don’t; and like all good relationships, compromises can be reached that keep both parties happy.

There may be no alternative to felling when it comes to damaged or diseased trees but for the most part, from a garden design perspective mature trees are virtually impossible features to replace in a garden and finding something even vaguely as versatile and impressive as a mature tree is very costly – if you have inherited one or more in your garden we’d recommend you hang on to them, they are like gold-dust!