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Small Trees

Whatever the size of your garden, it is important to plant trees. Native trees are best especially oak, willow, birch and hawthorn. They support insect life and give food, homes and cover for birds and other wildlife.

Elder flowers

Did you know? Elder was once thought to be a witches’ tree.

Elder (Sambucus nigra)

Height up to 10 metres

The Elder tree is visited by many insects, hoverflies in particular are attracted to its flowers strong smell. Birds are fond of the lovely black berries and its seeds are spread in their droppings. Both the flowers and the fruit can be used to make wine and jam. Elderberries are rich in vitamin C and hot elderberry juice or wine is a traditional remedy for colds.

Educational Discounts
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Hawthorn (crataegus monogyna)

Hawthorn berries

Height up to 10 metres

This small tree supports many insects. Hawthorn berries are a very important winter food for many birds including redwings and fieldfares as they stay on the bush long after other berries have disappeared.

Did you know? There is a hawthorn tree at Glastonbury which has no thorns and blooms twice, once in December.

May blossom

Blackthorn or Sloe (Prunus spinosa)

Height up to 4 metres

Birds like to nest undisturbed in its thorny branches. The Black Hairstreak butterfly lays its eggs mainly on blackthorn. The ripe berries, although bitter can be made into wine or used to flavour and colour gin.

Blackthorn blossom

Did you know? Blackthorn is traditionally used to make the Irish shillelagh.

Sloe

Cherry (Prunus)

Height up to 20 metres

Birds love the fruit of both the wild and cultivated forms. Bullfinches eat the buds.

Cherry blossom

Holly (Ilex Aquifolium)

Height up to 20 metres

The evergreen holly can be grown as a tree or planted as a hedge. It makes an ideal animal proof barrier especially giving cover for birds from cats. Birds are fond of the berries especially thrushes. The Holly blue butterfly lays its eggs on the flowers and its caterpillars feed on the leaves. Use its cut branches to keep cats away from places that birds are vulnerable, such as below your birdtable.

Holly berries

Did you know? It is said that holly planted near homes wards off lightning and keeps away witches. Holly and ivy were thought to have represented man and woman, the holly being the man and the ivy, the entwining female.

Variegated holly

Apple & Crab Apple (Malus)

Height up to 10 metres

The crab apple, is the ancestor of all our cultivated varieties. The fruit is bitter to humans (although it makes delicious jams and jellies) but loved by birds.

Old English apples

Did you know? The apple is a symbol of love. Peel an apple in on strip, throw it over the left shoulder and it is said to show the initial of your future husband

The apple blossom has a fragrance that is intoxicating to bees.

Wayfaring tree (Viburnum lantana)

Height up to 6 metres

The berries which turn from green to yellow, to red to black, ripening unevenly, are inedible to humans, but liked by many birds.

Did you know? The young twigs are so flexible that they were once used to bind things in the days before string was used.

Unevenly ripened fruit

Hazel nuts

Hazel (Corylus avallana)

Height up to 12metres

A useful tree as it can be coppiced and its straight stems can be used in the garden for been poles and also making good walking sticks. Hazel nuts are eaten by squirrels, mice, pigeons, jays and pheasants and humans. Its catkins provide plentiful pollen in spring.

Hazel leaf

Did you know? Hazel is the traditional wood used for making ‘wattle and daub’ and coracles. The twigs are used as diviners to find water.

Male catkin

Willow or Sallow (Salix)

Height up to 16 metres

The willow is home to many insects and their larvae. Its flowers with their abundant pollen is visited by large numbers of day and night flying species of insects. The down from the seed is often used by Goldfinches and other birds.

Did you know? Willow bark contains tannin and the drug salicin, used in medicines as the basis for aspirin.

Rowan or Mountain Ash (Sorbus)

Height up to 20 metres

There are over 80 species of rowan with various coloured berries. The rowan berries are loved by birds especially blackbirds, thrushes, fieldfares and redwings, which strip them as soon as they are ripe.

Rowan berries

Did you know? Farmers planted the rowan around their buildings to ward off witches and evil spirits.

Laburnum (Laburnum anagyroides)

Height up to 7 metres

One of our prettiest yet most poisonous of our garden trees. The flowers attract many insects and the tree  relies on them for pollination as the pollen cannot fertilise the female flower parts unless they have been punctured by insects, preventing self pollination.

Did you know? All parts of the laburnum are poisonous especially the seeds.

Laburnum flowers

 

 

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