Choosing Flowering Trees for Small Gardens

Flowering trees are perfect for small gardens.

• Choose trees that cast light shade if you want to plant a flower garden below them. Some trees allow sunlight to filter down between light branches or small leaves. Small, weeping, or long-trunked trees allow light to reach the flowers from the side during the morning and afternoon. Some good choices for mixed flower beds include crabapples, flowering plums, flowering cherries, franklin tree, golden chain tree, and Japanese tree lilac. Among the shade trees, consider honey locusts, ironwood, and birches.
  
  
• Avoid planting large-fruited trees over patios and decks. Large crabapples, apples, pears, and other fruits and berries can mar the patio and furniture, drop on people, and make steps slippery. Sweet, ripe fruit can attract yellow jackets and other critters. Let large fruits look pretty from afar, where they can drop unheeded in mulch, lawn, or ground cover. For outdoor living areas, choose tree cultivars with small or persistent fruit that won't drop and cause a mess.
  
  
• Buy flowering trees in the spring. Trees purchased in the fall have probably been sitting in the nursery lot all summer.

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