Native deciduous trees for the garden

deciduous trees not only characterize the face of the garden, but also offer space to set up shady spots.

Popular deciduous trees for the garden

The is particularly popular witch hazel, which opens its flowers already in winter. Furthermore, one finds very often forsythia, which in spring with their yellow flowers increase the anticipation of summer. Shortly after the flowering period of the forsythia you see flowering everywhere magnolias, which provide pleasant shade in summer. In terms of color, magnolias are at their most beautiful in autumn. Maples, sweetgum and euonymus are also particularly beautiful to look at in autumn.

However, not all hardwoods are subject to seasonal fluctuations, as there are also many plants that are green all year round, such as holly and the

cherry laurel. The gorse is also very popular and keeps its foliage until spring.

There are also deciduous trees, which are a feast for the eyes, especially because of their flowers, while others have beautiful leaves or are also impressive with their growth habit. You also have to consider the scent of the woods, which couldn't be more different. Hardwoods are popular because they are very durable and form the face of the garden more than any other plant. It is therefore important when planning a garden to place the deciduous trees in the right places:

• You can use them as solitary trees or as ground cover use.
• Deciduous trees are very often found as hedges or as underplanting.

Due to the wide range of local deciduous trees on offer, you can let your design ideas run free. However, you should be familiar with the soil and climatic conditions at the location, because the deciduous trees sometimes have their very own requirements. This is the only way to have friends in your garden for many years.

Most common representative of the native deciduous trees

The most common deciduous trees found in German gardens are:

• the black or red alder,
• the sycamore,
• the native service pear,
• the boxwood,
• the hazel tree,
• the European beech
• as well as the common ash
• and the common ivy.

Garden holly, aspen and wild cherry are also very common. All deciduous trees can be found in the garden department of a well-stocked hardware store or in a garden specialist center. In the latter, you get expert advice right away, which can be very valuable. Furthermore, you can also order many deciduous trees on the Internet. Here, too, the information content is very varied and valuable.

tree or shrub?

Deciduous trees or deciduous trees were sometimes mentioned above, then deciduous trees again, and then diving also names that are more likely to come from the decorative shrubs that stand alone in the garden or from hedge plants knows. What is a tree and what is a deciduous tree, and what is the difference to the plants that are actually commonly called shrubs?

Well, precisely this definition is so complicated that all the terms used above have their justification. The difference between tree and shrub is by no means sharp, but is made by biologists “according to circumstantial evidence”, so to speak:

• The main difference is that a tree grows mainly in the crown area, while a shrub always produces new wood from the rootstock.
• Accordingly, we refer to trees and shrubs as "trees" that grow quite tall, only begin to branch out at a certain height and carry their leaves mainly in the treetops.

However, this rule is not fully adhered to: the poplar e.g. B. typically from the ground up, so it's actually a "poplar tree". The (rather arbitrary) boundary between tree and shrub is set at between 5 and 10 meters in height (but Hazel "bushes" often grow taller than cherry "trees" and some trees really don't grow at the forest line in the mountains more very high). Quite a few hardwoods can do both, they grow just as often as a tree as a shrub, e.g. B. Elderberry, juniper and the already mentioned hazelnut. Humans can not only “uproot trees” and “plant trees”, but also “form trees” by forcing the plant to form a stem through pruning measures.

• However, they are all woody plants, because a plant is always referred to as a "woody plant" when its branches become woody, i.e. the biopolymer lignin is stored in its cell walls and thus become stronger.
• In addition, it is characteristic of the deciduous trees that they become several to many years old (apart from trees and shrubs, there is only one perennial type of plant, the perennials).
• Deciduous trees are then the woody plants that form leaves and not needles, unlike the Coniferous wood (in reality, the needles are just leaves, "needle leaves" even).

Native deciduous trees - ecologically the best choice

Native trees are a must in our gardens, even if their aesthetics lag behind modern ones for a while The attractiveness of exotic imports seemed to be fading and their ecological value was not considered as important. Today we know the once familiar trees and shrubs appreciate again, a plant that feels really comfortable in its habitat looks better in the long run than a sterile exotic that withers away if it just doesn't get the tremendous extra care it needs in a foreign climate needs.

Their ecological importance has even increased: In times when many gardens consist only of faceless hybrid breeds and more and more people living in an environment in which the surrounding greenery is subject to human design are the long-established plants for the animal world that surrounds us vital. If we don't want to be the only species on this earth one day, we have to provide our fellow creatures with a livelihood Shelter, breeding grounds and food sources, and that's what we do when we choose trees native to a region are.

It is true that some "smart birds" also dare to approach non-native woody species, but other animals are more "shy" and if we want to preserve the existing diversity, we need native trees and shrubs in the garden, each one forming a whole small one ecosystem.

An overview of native deciduous trees

And it's not like there isn't enough choice of native deciduous trees. Here is a brief overview of what belongs here and can become a deciduous tree (many of them also become shrubs or hedges): maple, acacia, sycamore, sycamore elm, Birch, beech, copper beech, mountain ash, oak, service tree, alder, ash, aspen (aspen), sweet chestnut, field elm, white elm, gray alder, green alder, hornbeam, chestnut, Cork oak, mulberry, downy birch, whitebeam, palmahorn, plane tree, plum oak, robinia, common beech, red oak, silver birch, umbrella acacia, black alder, blackwood acacia, Silver Acacia, Norway Maple, Common Oak, Bird Cherry, Sessile Oak, Elm, Rowan, Walnut, Willow, Wild Cherry, Turkey Oak, Sugar Maple, and then there's ours many fruit trees.

If we move towards deciduous trees, which are commonly thought to grow as shrubs, there are still plenty of choices:

• barberry, bladderbush, blackberry, boxwood,
• Alder buckthorn, pear, lilac,
• common snowball, laburnum,
• dogwood, hazelnut, honeysuckle, raspberries, elder,
• Currants, buckthorn, cornel, medlar,
• Sea Buckthorn, Spindle, Holly and Hawthorn.

Here, too, only a few have really been listed, there are many others native hardwoods, definitely the right one for every garden design. Incidentally, you should be careful when buying the forsythia mentioned above if you really want to get a native tree: there are a European forsythia (but it is native to south-eastern Europe and loves a corresponding warmth), which is usually offered in the garden center However, forsythia is a hybrid of two Asian species that is ecologically rather critical because our insects and birds usually eat them avoid.

In general, the distinction is not always easy; in the first section above, a few species were mentioned that are commonly seen in gardens and are so familiar to us that they are often mistaken for native plants become. If you want to be sure about the environmental benefits of a deciduous tree, you can either use a buy a familiar variety or find out how long a tree has been naturalized with us and how many insects etc. it offers food (however, you would then have to go shopping in a specialist company with well-trained staff).

Learn more about shrubs