Amelanchier canadensis April flowers in Anne's garden

Barry Gayton

Trees and Shrubs

A talk by Barry Gayton. HPS 10 November 2018 

Mr Gayton’s talk concentrated on trees suitable for small gardens. Numerous slides were shown of examples including Acers, Malus, Sorbus, Cornus, Euonymus and others with recommendations made for specific varieties. I noted audience members busy writing down the names of their favourites but there were several that I was not familiar with but nevertheless looked interesting.

Sorbus scalaris is a spreading tree to 10m tall with leaves downy beneath which turn to orange, red and purple in the autumn. The small white flowers appear in spring and are followed by rounded red fruits.

Aesculus x mutabilis Induta is a small tree or large shrub and is a variety of Horse Chestnut known as Buckeye. It has palmate leaves and many yellow-flushed pink flowers born in panicles with good autumn colour.

Robinia hispida Casque Rouge forms a small tree with delicate Wisteria-like foliage. Fragrant, drooping clusters of, pea-shaped flowers appear in late spring and early summer and are followed by dark red-brown seed pods in the late summer. This variety has large purple pink blooms rather than the rose-pink flowers of the species.

A favourite small tree of mine is Amelanchier canadensis which grows in my small back garden. It has white flowers in spring set off against coppery foliage, black berries which are quickly devoured by the blackbirds and glorious autumn colour. It can also be pruned successfully to keep it within bounds.