most beautiful small tree

I'm intending buying some small tree seeds from Chiltern seeds as I want to grow a lovely tree or ten.

What would you recommend as a gorgeous small tree that will grow outside in damp cold Glasgow? I love flowering trees but it doesn't have to flower, beautiful foliage would do too.

 

What about one of the variagted Japanese willows ....a small specimen that can be pruned and shaped ..pale green/creamy foilage with a pink tinge .....they appear to give off a special light ..lovely plant.

The Kilmarnock willow -may be a bit obvious for you ...but small, weeps beautifully and produces the lovely catkins ahead of the foilage ......


both will do fine in your area, although I don't how long they'll take to grow from seed !!
M-L

 

We had a crataegus Pauls Scarlet which is a beautiful hawthorn with red and white flowers. It's on my wish list of must have plants. It flowers later than all the cherries and is a mass of flowers, then of course you get the berries in Autumn. It isn't an exceptionally tall grower and can be pruned into shape if it gets straggly.

 

But you can't grow it from seed I think Celia. Not sure about the variegated maples as well. What about a Zelkova serrata, or a Sorbus kashmiriana, or a Stewartia of some description?

 

According to my RHS encyclopaedia you can sow them from seed but it may take 18 months to germinate, are you a patient person?

 

Think he must be, to be thinking of growing a tree from seed....

 

Especially hawthorne - I grew the common hawthorn from whips and it took a good 7 years for it to flower.

Mind I have grown a white barked birch from seed following a Which trial. Its still got a long way to go 7 years later.

 

Still a bit surprised you can grow a cultivar from seed. If you're not patient you can always grow a few sycamores Sawfish..they are almost small in a huge kind of way and rarely self seed outside the growing season. Ugly leaves though

 

I love the idea of growing a tree from seed, just to see such a majestic thing from its first stages. Its not the visual thing I dont care if its a certain size by whatever year, its just the thought of it being something I grew from birth (in a way).

I've already got general sherman sequoia seeds in pots and some bristlecone pines. The bristlecone pines might be fun as they can live for about 6000 years! A great family heirloom though, it'll still be in a tiny flower pot when I pop my clogs.

I'd really like to go deep into a forest somewhere in Scotland and plant a General Sherman then wait to see if it starts sticking up above the rest in years to come, apparently they grow very quickly.

 

They do. Grow as fast as Leylandii.

 

My daughter planted an acorn when she was 4 and it germinated. We dug it up the year before we moved and so it has spent the last 2 years in a small bucket. We finally planted it out today, it even survived not being watered this summer. Can't wait for it to produce acorns in 30 years!

 

Sawfish, I planted some bristlecone pine seeds back in 1987, and they're still only three foot high, but they would be much bigger if grown in the open ground, mine are in largish pots.
I saw the "general sherman" tree back in 1985 and still remember how gigantic it and the other redwoods are, I have a small one in my garden about twelve foot high, they do grow fast.

 

Sawfish - would you like a few Wild Pear seeds - my pet project growing Pyrus Pyraster. I agree with you about the thrill of growing a TREE. Just brillant.

 

I would, Rumple - if you've any more going spare!! Cheeky, I know

 

Dendrobium - I would love to send them on to you. Before, would you pop into the exchanges thread below. I have put a short list of seeds for trade/to have, and see if I can tempt you with any thing else. (I'm trying to get some seed swapping interest going). Then all I need is an address and I'll pop them in the post this weekend.