Why Every Garden Needs Trees
Every garden needs trees. A garden without trees is like a body without bones; incomplete, weak, empty and unstructured.
There are so many benefits to having a garden filled with trees and yet a lot of people hesitate to plant them. Maybe it feels like a big commitment - trees can seem so permanent and some can grow very tall. But they are so worth it! I will now do my best to persuade you to fill your entire garden with trees. If, by the end of this article I have you convinced, you can take a look at the trees I’m currently growing (at the bottom of the article). These trees all grow easily in our Perth climate (a dry, mediterranean climate with predominately sandy soils) and will bring you and your garden immeasurable joy! Go and plant one today!
1. Trees provide your garden with shade
This is a bit of an obvious point to make I guess (‘trees = shade’…duh), but a lot of people overlook the value of having patches of dappled shade throughout their gardens. Especially if you live in Australia, you’ll be used to summers with hot, dry heat and a lot of harsh sunlight. Many non-native plants really struggle in these mid-summer conditions and adding trees to your garden can help provide a little reprieve for sun-sensitive plants. Having a few shady areas in your garden also means you can grow a wider variety of plants than you could grow if you had only full-sun. Things like hydrangeas, camellias, philodendrons, aquilegias, oyster plants and impatiens all flourish in dappled shade and away from the harsh glare of the sun.
2. Trees help to support healthy soil
Another benefit of growing trees in your garden is that they help to support and improve your soil. Their root systems add structure to the soil, prevent run-off and soil erosion and improve soil aeration and drainage. As the tree pushes its roots through the soil, it creates spaces for water to drain through and for air to be stored. This can be a great way to combat soil that has poor drainage (admittedly not such a problem in our sandy soils, but worth pointing out nonetheless!).
Leguminous trees (including Acacia trees, Cassia trees and Prosopis trees) also act as living fertilisers for your soil, pulling nitrogen from the air and releasing it into the ground via their roots. This helps improve the soil quality in your garden (although be sure to look for nitrogen fixing trees that are native to your region, as some can be invasive).
3. Trees act as wind breaks and create shelter for smaller plants
Trees and large shrubs also benefit your garden by acting as wind breaks and providing added shelter to the garden. If you have an especially windy garden, work out where the wind is usually coming from and consider planting a row of trees that will act as a wind break, shielding the rest of your garden on windy days.
4. Leaves provide mulch for the garden
Deciduous trees (which drop their leaves in autumn) also provide the added benefit of free mulch for your garden! Rake up the mulch and either add it to your compost tumbler or store it in reusable garden bags, allowing for a little moisture to enter the bags and help the leaves decompose. After 6-12 months you’ll have a wonderful mulch to add to your garden beds.
Curry tree
5. Trees help with your pest control
In a roundabout way, trees can really help control garden ‘pests’ (aka friendly critters who eat things you don’t want them to eat). Trees provide shelter and homes for the birds that visit your garden. A garden with plenty of trees is a more attractive destination for a wide variety of birds. The more birds you have hanging out in your garden, the more insects they will eat! Attracting birds to your garden is a much more enjoyable way to control pests than wasting your time with pesticides and sprays, so as far as I’m concerned, trees are an essential ingredient for a bird-friendly garden. In our garden, birds seem to especially like the pecan tree, the elderflower and the native mulberry. Other bird-attracting trees include grevilleas, banksias, callistemons, and a wide range of flowering natives, check out this list for some more suggestions.
A willy wagtail nest in the mango tree
6. Trees help cool your garden in summer
Trees have a massively beneficial effect on the temperature of your garden. They absorb water from the ground via their roots and then, through transpiration, release that water into the surrounding air. This cools the space beneath and around the trees on warm days, helping to lower the overall temperature in your garden during the daytime. At night, cooler temperatures cause water molecules in the air to condense back as droplets on the leaves of your trees. This warms the air around the tree, helping to keep your garden warmer at night.
7. Trees add structure to your garden
Trees add permanent structure to your garden and so can really help create a space that is beautiful to look at and be in. Often, even people with bigger backyards will plant only one or two trees, or they might place several trees evenly around the perimeter of their garden, leaving the space in the middle empty in the hope of creating a sense of spaciousness. Paradoxically, planting trees this way can make your garden feel smaller rather than bigger. In a yard that is planted only on the perimeters you can cast your eye over the entire garden in a few seconds. If, instead you place trees throughout the garden, there will be a feeling of having to explore further, to walk around those trees and see into the hidden nooks and crannies they obscure. It is these unseen and unexplored spaces in a garden that give it that magic feeling, like a fairy garden in a children’s book; a place where you can ramble and get lost. Strategically placed trees help you achieve this, increasing a garden’s feeling of mystery and seclusion.
The Elderflower tree, covered in spring blossoms
8. Misconceptions about growing trees
Unhelpfully, there are a heap of misconceptions about trees that serve no purpose other than to prevent people from planting them. These are best ignored. Here are a few of the most common:
“Their roots will spread through the garden, ruining it for everything else”
This really depends more on the type of trees you’re growing. Some trees do have root systems that spread through entire gardens, deplete the soil and make growing other plants difficult if not impossible. Fortunately in my experience not many trees actually do this. Here’s a great list of invasive trees to avoid planting in your garden (I can definitely confirm that Ficus trees are NOT a good idea - there were three in our garden when we moved in, and removing them has improved the soil and nearby beds immeasurably). But, if you just make sure to avoid planting trees with invasive root systems, you’ll find that you can plant plenty of amazing trees while still having a garden that is able to support many other plants - in some cases, the trees will even help you to grow a wider variety of other plants). Check out my list at the bottom of this post - I grow all these trees in my own garden and none so far have become remotely invasive.
“They ALL grow massive”
Fortunately this isn’t true! A lot of medium sized trees will only grow between 2-4 metres, which allows for a lovely slightly-shady canopy but won’t dominate your entire garden. You can also get dwarf trees which will only grow 1-2 metres - many fruit trees are now available as dwarf trees, so you could plant a whole heap of them in your garden without sacrificing too much space. If you’re also short on space but would like to plant some trees, consider espaliering them (this is where you prune them flat against a wall, making them very compact and limiting their shade).
“You can only fit in about 1-2 trees in any given garden”
Also definitely not true. I just counted and have 26 productive trees growing in our garden at the moment (we live on a 655m2 block, but at least half of that is taken up by the house). If you pick your trees wisely you can have A LOT in quite a modest garden. And you’ll find that adding trees and other big plants to a smaller garden actually makes it appear bigger.
“They can’t be grown in pots”
Not true. A lot of trees can be grown in pots! This can be a great way to start your own garden if you live in a rental property and aren’t able to plant directly into the ground. Dwarf fruit trees, curry leaf trees, bay trees, citrus trees and many others can grow really well in large pots. I have an Asian Bell Tree (Radermachera sinica) in a half wine barrel pot on our back verandah and it’s growing beautifully! If you’re not ready to start putting trees in the ground, just find yourself a big pot ~70cm in diameter, fill it with good quality potting mix and compost and plant a tree in there!
A hideaway under the shade of the mulberry, native mulberry, Tahitian lime and elderflower trees
9. Trees I’m growing at the moment
To finish up, here’s a list of every edible tree in our garden at the moment, plus a few of the ornamentals we’ve put in too. We have a handful of other ornamentals growing around the place, but I can’t currently remember all their names! Suffice it to say, what follows are the important trees, the ones I highly recommend for any and all gardens! These all thrive in Perth’s sunny coastal conditions, so if you’re looking for something edible, a home for birds or a little bit of dappled shade in your garden, give these a go!
Banana (I love our banana tree! This year it produced four big bunches of bananas, and although a blasted rat has started chewing into half of them, those that I have eaten are beyond delicious. Banana trees are a fantastic thing to grow if you live in Perth - they seem to thrive out here with very little effort needed)
Mango (last year we got TWO mangoes off the tree, this year it seems to be focusing more on growing big. The mangoes tasted delicious beyond words so I am pretty bloody impatient for next summer to arrive and hopefully bring a lot more mangoes!)
Papaya (mine is fruiting for the first time this year - beautiful white flowers followed by fruit that starts off the size of an egg and slowly grows into something closer to a football! It is in one of the more neglected spots in the garden, receiving dappled shade and in pretty average soil, so all things considered I think it’s doing a great job!)
Bay tree (this is such a beautiful tree, it can be grown as more of a bush or pruned into a standardised tree - the leaves are a wonderful addition to so many dishes!)
Curry leaf tree (these trees are gorgeous, they have lovely delicate leaves with such a pungent aroma - so beautiful in curries!)
Red-fleshed apple (this is the second year my red-fleshed apple has fruited. Last year it only produced one apple, this year there are three! I’m waiting impatiently to pick and eat them…)
Eureka lemon (this is a great lemon for almost year-round fruit, there are only a few months of the year when it doesn’t provide us with lemons. Last year some of the lemons were bigger than a grapefruit!)
Meyer lemon (this variety has a shorter window of fruiting but the fruit is delicious - so sweet and juicy, with thin flesh that makes it perfect for recipes that call for including the lemon skin too - great for making preserved lemons)
Blood orange (still waiting on this slow grower to fruit, bear with me!)
Tahitian lime (this one hasn’t produced too many limes so far, but it is getting nice and big so I’m hopeful that one day it will reward our patience with masses of limes)
Kaffir lime (this one hasn’t fruited either but I don’t care because I grow it for the leaves - they have the most amazing aroma and are fantastic thinly sliced and added to Tom Yum soups and other curries)
Mandarin (still immature, haven’t collected fruit yet)
Pink grapefruit (still immature, haven’t collected fruit yet)
Orange (got a few very sweet, very delicious oranges off our orange last year, but it’s still young so we’re waiting for a proper harvest)
Chocolate Sapote (this tree is reputed to have fruit that tastes like a chocolate pudding! As it hasn’t fruited yet I can neither confirm nor deny…stay tuned…)
Wampi (Clausena lansium - this tree is native to China and produces little grape shaped fruit. Ours is still a baby so it hasn’t fruited yet…)
Custard apple (custard apple fruit is one of the most delicious flavours on earth. Our custard apple is still immature so hasn’t fruited yet…this is becoming a bit of a theme… BUT oh boy, when everything starts fruiting I will be beside myself!)
Elderflower (produces gorgeous frothy white flowers in spring - the bees love it, its absolutely beautiful, and if I were a more organised person I’d be using the flowers to make elderflower syrups and wines. As it is, they make a wonderful last minute topping to cakes and other desserts!)
Fig (our fig is still immature and thus far the rat has beaten me to eat every single fig but one. Playing the waiting game…)
Dwarf pear (also immature, still waiting on fruit!)
Dwarf Peach-Nectarine (two fruits grafted onto one base - this tree produced the best peach I have ever eaten two years ago, one year ago the fruit fell off, this year the rat ate the only peach on the tree. A tree of dashed dreams and false hopes, but next year I’ll be ready with a net and a lot of determination!)
Native mulberry (the fruit isn’t so amazing on this tree - little white jelly-like fruits, no bigger than the nail of your little finger, but that doesn’t bother me because the birds love it and I like growing something that I can offer to them!)
Mulberry (a big, hardy, delicious tree that drips with juicy, sweet magenta fruits every springtime!)
Pomegranate (this one hasn’t fruited yet but that’s my fault because I have treated it like CRAP for several years haha, now it’s finally well fed and in a pot I’m hoping for some fruit next year)
Pecan (this tree was in the garden when we moved in, it is GIANT - about 8m tall - and it provides heaps of lovely dappled shade. It would give us pecans if we could be bothered to pick and shell them, but so far we’ve preferred to leave them as an offering to the Carnaby's black cockatoos that visit our house every Autumn to feast on them)
Lemon verbena (I killed my last lemon verbena by pruning it too harshly so this time I am leaving it unbothered to do its thing and grow as a bit of a bushy shrub. The leaves of the lemon verbena have an amazing flavour - they taste beautiful in iced teas, finely chopped into a salad, as part of a vinaigrette or alongside some fish - a totally versatile tree with the most gorgeous little white flowers in summer!)
Plus a few purely ornamentals (Crepe Myrtle, Native Hibiscus, Angel’s Trumpet tree, Dwarf Weeping Maple)