Hawthorn or some flowering cherry maybe?

Thanks, I like the idea of a dwarf cherry as one of the trees we are removing is a horribly managed / unsightly large cherry. A good replacement.

trees that have become totally unmanageable due to their large size.

==>>> i dont really know what this means ...

i have tried for years.. and never figured out how to micro manage a tree ..

the reason i ask .. is to ask you.. what exactly you mean???

no tree.. ever stops growing ... so if you are looking for some tree.. to magically stop at some height ... if thats what you want to manage ... then sooner or later .... it will outgrow such ...

its all about the annual growth rate.. and how fast it gets to that size... and goes right past it ...

so if it grows a foot per year ... in 15 years .. it will exceed your limit ... [depending on how big you start with, or course .. and getting established]

if it grows 3 feet per year ... 5 years .. etc ... [i am sure you can convert all the feet to meters ...]

ken

I agree with you on this.

We just bought the house, not a large garden, previous owner planted Tulip Tree, Cherry, Silvet Birch, Laylansai. All now massive!! Totally out of control, no light. $2500 to take them down. We are in a conservation area so need permission from Council or face large fine.

Need to suggest what we will be replanting with to help ensure application is successful.

Don't want to end up with monsters.

Nick

Fat finger - laylandai, silver birch

I believe "later" is the operative word here :-) While it's true trees do not stop growing until they die, growth slows to almost imperceptible rates once they reach their genetically programmed maturity. Otherwise all trees that have been established for 50+ years would be 60' tall or more. And some (many) will just never achieve that size no matter how long they live.

Not indigenous but IMO, some of the nicest 'small' trees are Asian species of maple (Acer). Any Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), full moon maple (Acer shirasawanum or A. japonicum) or the paperbark maple (Acer griseum) will remain in appropriate scale for a smaller garden and offer excellent form and leaf color. If you are interested in a more showy, flowering tree, Japanese snowbell (Styrax japonica) or Stewartia pseudocamellia would make lovely additions.

Both the Styrax and the Stewartia are rather unusual here, possibly because many of us have alkaline to neutral soils rather than acid to neutral.

"All now massive!! Totally out of control, no light. " Be aware larger, taller deciduous trees often have canopies that are overhead, so the trunk has a relatively small footprint. A shorter tree with the canopy down lower may take up more yard space. Is your main complaint that the shade is too dense? For what? Lawn? Flower beds? Just want a sunny yard? Here in the U.S., sometimes people plant trees that aren't necessarily small but rather cast less dense shade. I'm not pressing for you to plant huge trees, just to think through exactly what you want.

I'm a fan of Ilex aquifolium. There is Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)

Davidia? Yes, it does get larger than 5m but so does most of the trees suggested here

When people are asking about trees this size, I tend to think more along the lines of shrubs. Common lilac can easily be 4 meters, as can many viburnums.

I've heard this so many times in different venues...those living in the UK have this consuming need to 'manage' nature. Be it the Woodland Trust, an estate, a private landowner with 3-10 acres, or a couple of trees on a small lot...it must be managed. For goodness sakes, just leave things alone once in a while. I believe many in the UK would be horrified to see a healthy totally natural ecosystem with great biodiversity...probably clear it to save a few blue butterflies.

Ex-pats even feel the need to do it North America...clearing a wood lot of all the underbrush or mowing every square inch of a 5 acre property because it needs managing.

You are right Smivies but there is one more aspect to it. If I leave my land on its own, it will turn into a coniferous forest with very low biodiversity. Only moss and bilberry on the ground and no other underbrush than spruce seedlings. What I want is at least ten species of canopy trees, lots of different bushes and herbs on the ground. That will benefit a wide variety of birds, mammals, insects and lichens. Ok, this is not the UK but the same can happen everywhere.

smivies - I'm not sure if you've ever been to the UK but it sounds as if you are applying criteria suitable for a huge landmass with true wild areas to a tiny overcrowded island where the landscape has been managed for millennia. The need to manage nature isn't 'consuming' as if it were some sort of OCD. It's necessary. The post ice age, ancient wildwood began to be cut down 6,000 years ago by palaeolithic farmers. Woodlands became important working areas managed to provide fuel, building materials, food and fodder. We have more than 61 million people living on an area 3/4 the size of California - we can't just 'let nature take its course'. The average building plot for a new build 4 bedroom home is 1/8th or even 1/16th of an acre. I don't know how large the OP's garden is but a single forest-sized tree would entirely fill my garden. If the neighbours had one too we would have no light in our house - ever. Land management practices have to be different from the US or we would have no food, no gardens, no light, no space and no friends.

BTW - I was talking to an Australian tourist last week. Big country right? Lots of natural, wild spaces? She was overwhelmed by the numbers of beautiful trees she was seeing in the countryside and wanted to know how they got there. Sorry to disappoint you but they'd been 'managed' by people over the centuries.

Really interesting to see the discussion I have provoked.

For your information, my garden area is approx 250 square metres.

There is a 45 foot tulip tree on the west border, a 40 foot silver birch to the south west, a forty foot cherry South East, plus a 25 foot laylandai and a 25 foot Norwegian pine on the site.

the neighbours have no light nor do we.

previous owner planted them as ornamentals many years ago.

Do a bit of maths and you'll see why they have to go.

I'd be interested to see comments about this. I could show photos, but they are all a bit dark.

Thank you...your responses are appreciated. It did occur to me later, that my 250m2 lot with three Silver Maples, 2 at full size (85' tall) and 1 quickly approaching full size have restricted what I can do in my yard. We keep them because their summer shade makes the use of our backyard enjoyable during the weeks of >28C and >80%RH. Probably not as much of a concern in the UK? Being at the same latitude as Marseille in a humid continental climate does require significant deciduous shade in the yard. Even more so as one moves south into the eastern US.

I do still feel that many UK landscapes, regardless of their anthropogenic origins, are being maintained artificially for the sake of continuity and aesthetic preference rather than actual societal need.

Hi Smivies

i do agree with the sentiment your last paragraph.

I think it got above 25 degrees a couple of times this summer,

What do your neighbours think about your large specimens? Mine got the bunting out when I checked with them about our plans. They are only 5 metres from them.

I would suggest that continuity and aesthetic preference are societal needs.

"What do your neighbours think about your large specimens?"

Neither has a particular issue with them. The two larger ones are 110 years old which for Silver Maple is getting on in years and the species is known its for catastrophic failures. So...no issue with shade but some concern with safety. We diligently schedule an arborist to inspect them every 2-3 years and take remedial action as needed.

In my area, shade is one of those things that some people complain about until they realize how hot it can be without it. That sentiment grows the further south you go into the US.

Deciduous shade is great around here, evergreen shade is not. Not until you get down into the Carolinas would some winter shade be appreciated.

"I would suggest that continuity and aesthetic preference are societal needs."

This is the sort of dialogue I would love to delve into further. Unfortunately, I find the format of this venue makes it more difficult to communicate complex positions. Environmental planning & management of protected spaces was my area of research...while I've moved away from it now, I always enjoy discussing it.

While I've only visited the UK a couple of times, I think we are looking at two completely distinct gardening cultures and I don't think it's fair to impose one cultural sensibility on the other or even make comparisons. One has more than a millennium of landscape history; the other has a couple hundred years at best. It's apples and oranges!!

And I would venture to say that many US gardeners are just as intent on "managing" their landscape as what might be interpreted by this post so that notion is certainly not unique to the UK. Newer developments in this country, especially in more populated areas, result in tiny properties and a "managed landscape" within these restraints is absolutely necessary. Hence all the posts regarding privacy screening with low profile plants, requests for small trees, the development by plant breeders of "dwarf' or "compact" plant varieties better suited to small spaces. Those who have the benefit of gardening on larger properties seem to forget that a large portion of the US gardening population is dealing with less than 10,000 sf, or a common urban/suburban lot size

As a garden designer, "managing" landscapes is my primary task. Any time we intentionally plan or design a new garden or renovate an existing garden, we are "managing" the landscape. To take it further, gardening in any intentional form IS managing the environment.

here are some of my personal favorites: japenese maple, japenese methley plum, kousa dogwood,eastern redbud, pink hybrid magnolia

I´m enjoying this discussion but Id enjoy it more if I knew everyoneś frame of reference, i..e. your climate zone. And I can´t remember it if it is mentioned once in the body of a first post or there are long gaps in postings.

Please help me out: hereś how to post your zone so that it will appear every you post. No more ¨ẅhere in the world do you live¨ before someone answers your question:

Upper right hand corner go to

¨Your Houzz¨

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At the bottom of the list,,,,waaay bottom......

¨add your climate zone¨ and please add some geographical locator....

such as Zone 5 Chicagoland or like gardengals or Floraś names

Please note both pieces of information: actual zone and geographic marker

A lot of us thank you!