Close your eyes and think of your ideal yard. Like many people, you probably pictured a space with tall, leafy trees offering plenty of cooling shade. After all, who can imagine a summer afternoon picnic without shelter from the sun, or an old country home without a giant tree standing sentry in the yard?
Shade trees offer cooling shelter to an urban courtyard.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/Donna Krischan
The shade from a tree can be put to many uses – from a children’s play area to an informal picnic spot.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Add privacy with a cypress planting – it’ll quickly screen this patio from the house that neighbors it.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
What kind of retreat do you want to create? This Asian-inspired garden is lovely in its formality.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Small gardens benefit by the addition of vertical accents created by trees and shrubs. Use these plants for color – either for their flowers or distinctive foliage traits.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/Donna Krischan
What planting large landscape trees, choose a featured location – someplace your tree can shine both day and night.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
You may already have trees or shrubs on your property, but even if you’re beginning with a blank slate, you can have shade sooner than you might think. Most shade trees give a reasonable degree of protection from the sun within 5-7 years of planting, and some fast-growing trees can provide shelter even more swiftly.
If you already have shady areas in your garden, you can create a lush oasis in filtered light. Ferns, hostas and annuals like impatiens make a shady spot even more inviting on a warm summer day, and there are many shrubs, including mahonia and rhododrendron, that flourish in these areas as well.
But perhaps you seek more than shade – you want a garden retreat. Through the imaginative use of trees and shrubs, you can create such a space. Ideal retreats vary from person to person and from season to season, but the basic concepts underlying any haven remain the same.
First think about what type of retreat you want and how you plan to use it. Maybe you want a secret garden – a place for children to play and discover the delights of nature. Or you might prefer a sheltered glade where you can spread a blanket and enjoy a picnic lunch. Perhaps you dream of a quiet sitting area where you can sit and read. Maybe you want a space that’s lush but loosely structured, or you desire the refuge of an orderly Asian meditation garden.
Don’t have a big yard? Small spaces don’t mean you can’t use trees and shrubs to create a special area. Patio plantings and courtyard or rooftop gardens invite attention to detail, and with that comes an appreciation of even the smallest details. Since plants are viewed up close in small-space gardens, consider selections with great texture like a Japanese maple. You can easily admire the unfurling of a leaf in spring, the finely dissected nature of the feathery foliage in summer, and the intricate branching structure of the stems in winter. Likewise, fragrance of even the most delicately scented flower is more pronounced in a small area.
Be sure to keep scale and perspective in mind. A few choice selections of midsized trees or shrubs can help an urban garden feel expansive, but the heart of a small garden rests in the many dwarf and miniature species of trees and shrubs now available.
If you’ve got a slightly larger yard, two time-honored ways to add visual interest are with specimen plants and allées. A specimen can be a large majestic tree, a delicate ornamental selection or a particularly noteworthy shrub placed in the landscape as a freestanding, eye-catching focal point. A good specimen plant provides dramatic interest year-round by virtue of its outstanding form, size, foliage, flowers or fruit. In an expansive lawn, a copper beech, with its reddish bronze foliage and height of nearly 75 feet, can serve as an accent and provide visual balance to the landscape. In a smaller lawn, a dogwood, ornamental cherry or stewartia might work.
Allées are typically used to focus attention on a distant object or to create an elegant corridor through which to walk from one part of the garden to another. Traditionally associated with English estates, allées can work magically even in compact areas. Imagine walking through a tunnel of blooming Yoshino cherry trees, with a canopy of snowy white blossoms enveloping you and a series of graceful trunks leading you on. Such a beautiful and well-designed allée makes even a small space seem expansive.
And don’t forget the great ways to use shrubs in a landscape, including hedges, topiaries and espalier. Hedges act much like fences in a landscape, but they add a dynamic and highly organic feel that fences don’t.
Depending on the plants used, hedges can be formal or rustic, soft to the touch or prickly, imposing or diminutive. Single rows of sheared plants give an architectural look, while loose shrub plantings that have been shaped only lightly look more natural. Depending on the style you choose – and the architecture of your home – it’s possible to mix-and-match or define with distinct contrast.
Topiary is the practice of pruning plants into geometric shapes or into more intricate forms such as elephants, rabbits or teapots. It’s an ancient art that was very popular in medieval times and is still quite common, particularly in European landscapes. You can incorporate topiary by placing spiraled junipers on either side of your entryway or by using an obelisk-shaped yew as a special focal point.
Espalier is the art of training a tree or shrub to grow flat against a wall, trellis or fence. Excellent for small courtyard gardens, as well as large gardens, espaliered plants add beauty and interest to a blank wall.
No matter your garden space, there are many unique and wonderful ways to use trees and shrubs in your landscape. Just figure out how you want your space to look and what you’d like to use it for, then find the right plants to create that garden of your dreams.
