Time to branch out

Malus Red Sentinel, a flowering crab-apple tree, with its prominent scarlet fruit

This weekend I will be planting trees, remembering the great Doctor Johnson. When a man grows old, he remarked, he starts planting trees. Indeed he does, but so do younger and newer gardeners and the experience of veterans may help them avoid the second rate.

Why not start with trees that have at least three attractions, flowers, fruit and autumn colour? The obvious choices here are the Sorbusses, my recommended first stop for any gardener who already has a winter-flowering cherry. They include the silvery-leaved whitebeams and red-berried Mountain Ashes but they are not all too big for modest gardens. The finely cut leaves and pink-white berries of Sorbus vilmorinii are a first-class choice on any soil or in any climate-zone. The trees stop at about 12ft-15ft in height and the leaves colour prettily beside the autumn fruits. The ferny look to the foliage means the effect is never dull or overpowering, even in high summer’s sunlight. Sorbus vilmorinii is easier than the even lovelier and smaller S. cashmiriana, which is perhaps best in cooler gardens with neutral or acid soil. I have planted a shortish double “avenue” of vilmorinii and, years later, I look back on the effect as a big success. The trees are never clipped but they were well spaced up to 26ft apart. The off-white flowers in late spring are also a bonus.

At a height of about 15ft-20ft, the waxy green-grey leaves of Sorbus hupehensis are almost more impressive. This one, too, has pink-white berries and for a fortnight or so in late October there is a superb combination of leaves turning fiery pink-orange and clusters of berries hanging in outline. The birds, probably bullfinches, then strip the trees bare. I look nowadays on my four big hupehensis with paternal pride. During the dry summers of the early 1990s, I struggled to keep them watered from the hose as their leaves drooped and fell prematurely. Nobody warned me the trees were not as tough as basic Mountain Ash but together we pulled through the bad years and now that their roots are far down, they are able to take a long drought. If you plant a hupehensis on dry soil, allow for the effort of early vigilance to help it establish.

Drought has never troubled my other matured Sorbusses, a choice I owe to the expert suppliers, Landford Trees near Salisbury (www.landford-trees.co.uk). The proprietor talked me into a line of four Sorbus americana to edge off the garden against a stone wall about 8ft high. The ground beneath it is ferociously dry but these Sorbusses have never objected. The trees are upright in habit, the ideal shape for a boundary line and after 25 years they are about 15ft high. The neatly cut leaves are fresh green, like a Mountain Ash, and the glory of their year is mid-August to September when they set copious clusters of brilliant scarlet-red berries. Like the related Mountain Ashes they surprise us by showing berries early before autumn begins. I like this untypical behaviour and can only say that I have never pruned or watered my americanas and now have a tall, tidily shaped screen without any further effort. They are planted about 16ft apart.

Crataegus persimilis prunifolia

Flowering cherries are a subject for another day but I remind you that Prunus Amanogawa is one of the best column-shaped upright varieties for smaller gardens or confined spaces. It flowers quite late in May in normal years, if you believe in such things, and the flowers are double and a good shade of delicate pale pink.

Flowering crab-apples, or ornamental Malus, are another big subject and here I will only remark that one of the best of all, Malus Red Sentinel, is still covered in prominent scarlet fruit three months after better-known favourites, such as Golden Hornet, have dropped all their little apples in the first frost. Red Sentinel remains a first-class garden tree but its branches’ natural shape is to weep slightly and spread outwards. Be sure to buy a full standard with a bare stem of at least 6ft, and a height in total of about 8ft-10ft. Allow space for the branches to spread and also reckon on a dull and dusty month or two in late summer when the leaves lose their freshness.

The impressive Sorbus hupehensis

Mulberries, big-leaved Paulownias, pink-flowered Robinias and fine-coloured ash trees are all seductive choices. Be warned, as no list tells you, that they are all late into leaf, mulberries not being fully clothed in most years until early June. All of them are pretty trees but for this one reason they will never be my main choice for a front garden. I do not want to look out on bare branches when the tulips are already over. Instead, I recommend a return to the neglected ornamental thorn trees. The flowers attract insects by smelling like rotting meat but the scent is only noticeable if you go off to find it. The trees also have sharp thorns that give safety assessors something to write about. If you buy them as full standards and keep the trunks trimmed, no dog or child is going to collide with them at eye-level. For a glossy near-evergreen leaf and excellent late autumn berries, all the Crataegus on the market are excellent and undeservedly dismissed as “hawthorns” or “street trees”, as if the latter are necessarily second rate. In late autumn, Crataegus persimilis prunifolia has excellent red fruits on branches that retain their leaves and spread outwards and downwards. It is a delightful tree but Crataegus crus-galli is even showier, having glossier leaves but fiercer thorns, the source of its Latin name meaning “cockerel’s leg”. The longest-lasting dark green leaves are on Crataegus lavallei, another winner. Crataegus crus-galli, especially, will clip into a neat formal avenue zone that is as tough as the spurs on a cockerel’s leg and absolutely reliable even in dry conditions.

When a man gets old, perhaps he should start planting thorns. The time for second thoughts is shorter and there is less scope for complications and mistakes. Of course, it is never too late for a new magnolia, a new Davidia or late summer’s white flowering beauties, the Eucryphias that flourish so well on acid soil and further north in Britain. Never underestimate your own active future. For the framework, however, these Sorbusses, thorns and malusses will survive, develop and flower in a reliable span. I am glad I put them first even in my mid-40s.