Introduction This book was just about finished when the cousins with whom I was staying took me on a Sunday walk through a number of Cambridge college gardens. It was the perfect, evocative Cambridge May morning -- sun on the old stone, dappled shade along the Backs and, leaning over the wall of Trinity Hall's Fellows' Garden, we watched all those beautiful young people punting, with varying degrees of success, on the river below. To the left, the fine bridge of Clare College, framed by weeping willows dangling their fingers into the water. Such a day emphasized wonderfully the roles of trees in the built landscape. Where the architecture is good or hallowed by time, trees are complementary -- just look at the great horse chestnut (that day laden with white candles) against the east end of King's College Chapel with James Gibbs' Senate House behind. Where some buildings are, shall we say, uncompromisingly modern, as at St. John's, seen through branches and foliage of mature trees, they take on a special quality. No doubt the architect intended such an effect. That walk showed venerable trees in venerable settings as well as new plantings -- Fitzwilliam College has the best young Acer pensylvanicum I had seen for years, even in its North American home. The day before was spent at the University Botanic Garden, which offered many of the trees described in the following pages, a few that are omitted for various reasons (such as Trachycarpus and Cordyline , which lack the branch pattern of proper trees) and one or two I had nor met before. Why isn't the lovely fastigiate aspen more often seen? Meeting good trees, thoughtfully used, is a great spur to personal planting, and a university town is often a good place to start. Even new campuses have much to offer, often boasting architecture and landscape planting of significance (the professionals know there is a tradition of quality in the field to live up to). In the traditional towns, the juxtaposition of plant and place has not only reached a fine art, it virtually defines them. Think of that great sycamore in Oxford -- no species could be more ordinary -- leaning our from Queen's College just where the High Street makes its slight bend on the way to Magdalen and the Botanic Garden. Nature's and Man's architecture become as one. That other Cambridge, 3,000 miles to the west, near Boston, offers fine college campuses with similar felicities, and Harvard's associated Arnold Arboretum provides living collections of woody plants almost unrivaled in the western world. And the great virtue of such botanic gardens is that the plants are nor only labeled but almost certainly labeled correctly! This is obviously vital for those of us wanting to plant trees. Tree-watching in advance of tree-planting is a necessary spectator sport, and a list of suitable spots may be found on pages 199-203. While written descriptions are desirable as aides-mémoire or inspiration, nothing can take the place of personal engagement with the living plant. Such observation not only inspires the choice of species that are especially admired but also (and this is just as important, unless one is only concerned with a sort of stamp-album arboretum collection) reveals how they look in the garden or in the larger landscape. One can learn from great painters. Traditional artists composing a picture of garden or countryside are likely to show details of nearby trees, leaves, bark and even flowers; those in the middle distance are textural in foliage and habit, while in the distance, they are mainly shape and bulk. Often clouds beyond repeat those shapes. Gardeners play the same game, adding, if they are lucky, to existing plantings within or beyond their own boundaries. As I write, outside our garden door, I see how fortunate we are to have been able to do just that. A couple of hundred yards away on a grassy knoll are a few mature beech and sycamores and one fine hornbeam. I guess they were planted when the house was tarted up in the 1820s and when the fields in which they grow belonged to it. They still make our middle ground, and they frame views of the river below and distant hills beyond with their hedgerow trees and dark belts of coniferous forestry. This is all a learning experience. Those great middle-ground specimens are to the south and provide summer shade for the cows and sheep in the field (all adding nicely to the picturesque scene), and the trees seem to stand anchored in pools of their own darkness. As the days move into autumn, the shadows lengthen until, in midwinter, should there be any low sun, they almost reach the house. But, and this is a vital factor, by then leaves are fallen, the shade cast is no longer heavy, and the elegance of the branch tracery is seen against the light. Had they been evergreens, the effect would be much less agreeable. Within the garden and therefore within our gift is the foreground planting, and these, of course, are plants that demand close admiration for flower and foliage. Some we inherited, some we have added ourselves. Among the former are three youngish false cypresses ( Chamaecyparis ) starting to reach for the sky. During the decade since we've lived here permanently, they would have reached 30 feet (9 m) or so, cast daunting shade and dominated the scene unacceptably. An eminent garden designer staying for the weekend said we should bite the bullet -- they'd have to go. But one is always loath to cut down what has taken years to grow, and we'd already lost a fine elm from Dutch elm disease in the same area. After a year or two of agonizing, we decided to treat them as topiary. They are now obelisks, controlled and adding a certain necessary formality, entirely satisfactory except when one is teetering with shears atop a tall ladder. There are several morals in this cautionary tale: Choose trees close to the house with great care, live with inherited trees for a bit before making any irrevocable decision, make that decision as a clear part of the overall design of the garden, be brave. The intended scope of the book that follows should perhaps be mentioned here. It attempts to encourage gardeners on both sides of the Atlantic to plant trees for present pleasure and for posterity and in doing so to indicate potential that is shared as well as the differences in our gardening activities. These latter to a great extent revolve around climatic patterns: the moist, relatively mild oceanic climate of Western Europe and of maritime Western North America and the cold winter/hot summer continental climate to the east. Having spent a dozen happy years as director of a Canadian botanic garden on the north shore of Lake Ontario (zone 6b we used to claim, crossing our fingers all the while), I am acutely conscious of the possibilities of both sides. I am also conscious of grand gardeners from England on the lecture circuit who, when showing a slide of some ravishing plant, were apt to add in tired tones that "it probably wouldn't be hardy with you." Actually, often it was, or if not, good alternatives could be found. The reverse happens when North Americans in Britain illustrate their fall colors, some of which we can compete with. Well, quite. Bridging the divide are hosts of splendid plants, natives of the Old and New Worlds and the Orient and their variants that succeed widely. The barriers are continually being pushed back. This is a recurring theme in the text that follows. What must always be realized is the significance of planting and gardening with trees. These are not just pretty plants putting on a seasonal show, they are among the biggest of the Earth's organisms, their time scale is often far beyond that of their planters, and they affect innumerable other organisms to become ecosystems in their own right. In the garden, they either make possible or inhibit what else we wish to grow, and in the way they absorb or reflect the light and move with the wind seem to be a living part of everything that happens. They are nor to be played with lightly. On that subject, the writing of this book has concentrated the mind wonderfully. Dr. Johnson's use of that phrase, we all remember, concerned the prospect of "being hanged on the morrow," and though one hopes nor literally relevant it does offer thoughts of mortality. One should always plant trees in the expectation, however unlikely, that one will live forever or at least see them in their maturity. With the smaller ornamental species, there is some hope of this, with the great forest trees not much, but where space permits, there is no better way of being remembered. Thus in acknowledging thanks for help received, I can do no better than express gratitude to the unknown hosts of landowners, farmers, gardeners and plant collectors who have furnished our landscapes and gardens with native and exotic trees. More directly, I thank a number of friends who have helped with specific concerns: Jim Gardiner of Wisley, and Maurice Foster, whose magnolias in Kent are the envy of all; Anne Milovsoroff and Brian Bixley at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Ontario; Rodger Inglis, Douglas Chambers and Brian Bixley, also in Ontario, who share my enthusiasms. Elizabeth Scholrz and Judith Zuk of Brooklyn Botanic Garden were, as always, invaluable. At Frances Lincoln, Jo Christian and Anne Fraser have been entirely encouraging, and they involved Steven Wooster. Settling down to actually work on a book when there are things to do in the garden is never easy, so I am grateful to Mr. Andrew Ogden, orthopedic surgeon at Dumfries Royal Infirmary, for ensuring a period of relative immobility. Most thanks, of course, go to my wife, Penelope, and daughter Eve, who together turned my antediluvian pen-on-paper offerings into impeccable state-of-the-art floppy disks. Excerpted from The Best Trees for Your Garden by Allen Paterson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
