We Three Trees

I’ve been having sleepless nights over my choice for the three trees in the garden. When the inspiration for the planting first came to me I envisaged pine trees (either Pinus sysvestris or Pinus nigra), liking their evergreen, solid yet textured form as contrast with the swishy grasses beneath. For some reason I bottled out as I thought it was a rather unusual choice, and wrote in my design brief for the planting plan submission to the RHS that they would be multi-stemmed Prunus serrula. These are beautiful trees with gorgeous colourful bark and an open structure and probably the safer option.

I put in my request to the nursery for three of these but they came back to me to say that they were difficult to get hold of, so gave me the option of Cercidiphyllum japonicum. These are also elegant, multi-stemmed trees with the prettiest, almost heart shaped leaves which turn yellow, orange and pink in autumn when they smell of burnt sugar. I even went as far as to visit the nursery and choose the best three specimens that they had on site.

But I still had a niggle at the back of my mind that what I wanted, what I really, really wanted, was the Pinus, with a clean strong stem to about 1100mm so that the head of each tree could sit proudly above the grasses. Whilst procrastinating I found myself on my way back from Arley Hall where I passed a field full of exactly what I had in mind and promptly stopped the car to take a photograph. They were obviously being commercially grown en masse, all sitting in their special air pots and probably too large for my requirements. But that was it, I wasn’t going to have the Cercidiphyllum, I was going to trust my instincts and find to what I really wanted. 

'So back to Ladybrook and I now have my name against three smart looking Pinus nigra which are now awaiting their debut at Tatton in July!'