Make space for trees
We live here in the countryside but we don't all necessarily have rolling acres and space for a deer park (the one in the picture isn't mine in case you wondered (!) it's Bucklebury Farm Park - scene of many happy summer days out).
So without open parkland how do we make space for more trees in our gardens?
I have a couple of ideas - one is if you have a lawn, cut a circle of lawn out of it and put in a new tree or shrub!
The trees we are ordering in this autumn are very small bare root ones which are fantastic at settling in fast and growing well. Larger trees in pots are much more expensive but also higher risk as they have a tougher job adjusting to the new soil and growing on. Bigger trees will also require much more water from the start. Smaller bare root trees and shrubs will need looking after and watering through the first and second summer (depending on how hot and dry it is). But after that should be quick to establish and grow on.
Depending on whether you have rabbits, squirrels or muntjac in the garden, you might want to get a cane and tree guard from us to help keep your new plants safe from gnawing!
Mulching the ground around the tree is also a great idea as that will both hold moisture in the soil and suppress weed growth which would compete with the tree's growth.
But, what if your garden is already full of plants and trees? And you have no space for anything extra? Here in ours, we have several big mature trees which happily dominate the space and create fantastic habitat for wildlife. What we also have is saplings in our garden which have seeded themselves in the soil and grown. We don't want them where they are - so I pot them up and feed and water them in the hot months and watch them grow bigger. I’m growing them on so we can give them to our daughters when they are old enough to grow a tree in their gardens - whether that's in a pot or in the soil.
With our HUGS tree planting plan, I'm going to buy a couple of different trees, probably a rowan and a whitebeam and they will be grown on in pots to be our future trees in the garden. They will be waiting in the wings should anything happen to our mature trees. They will have been potted on each year and fed and watered and grown on in our garden soil. This means when the time comes, they can be planted out and adjust more easily to growing in our soil and help to fill a space where a more mature tree was. They will be our tree insurance - so we need never be without trees in our garden!
If you think you might have space for a new tree in your life, have a look at our tree planting page!
