The first thing worth planting is one you will not move.
There is a point where you stop treating a garden as temporary. The extension is finished, the children have gone, and you are fairly sure the next move is not one you will be organising yourself.
That changes what is worth planting. Bedding plants and pots are what you do in a house you might leave. A tree is what you do in one you will not.
Three reasons to wait until you are certain.
Planting out is a decision, not a purchase
Trees in pots move with you. Established trees do not, and attempting it rarely ends well. Putting one in the ground commits you to the site as much as to the tree, which is why it is worth doing when you are certain rather than hopeful.
The site questions come first
Where the drains and the cables run. How close the boundary is, and the house. What the canopy will shade in thirty years at four times the size. An afternoon with a plan of the services is worth more than any amount of enthusiasm.
The record outlasts the ownership
Whoever buys the house next inherits the tree. The record says what it is, when it went in and what you intended, which is more than most people get with an inherited garden.
Before you dig
- Find the drains, the water main and any cable runs. Looking at a plan of the services costs nothing. A root through a drain costs a great deal.
- Measure the distance to the house and to the boundary, then check the mature spread on that tree’s own page rather than guessing from the sapling.
- Check whether anything in the garden already carries a Tree Preservation Order, and whether the property is listed or sits in a conservation area.
- Plant between November and March if you can, while the tree is dormant and the ground is workable.
Scots Pine
It holds its shape through winter, takes an exposed position better than the others, and looks like something all year in a garden you will be looking at all year.
From £159.
A starting point, nothing more — all four are here with their mature sizes side by side, and what a legacy tree is and is not covers the ground this page assumes.
A tree planted properly in the right spot outlasts the mortgage, the kitchen, and the argument about where it should go. It is worth the afternoon with the plan and the spade.
