Which tree would suit your garden?

Now is a great time of the year to watch trees start to change colour when the chlorophyll fades from the leaves, revealing reds, yellows, and oranges.

As they prepare for winter, it is an opportune time to choose what tree might be a good fit for your own garden.

Autumn is a great time to get roots into the ground and established before the growing season begins once more. If there is a gap overlooked by a neighbour or new building, then maybe now is the time to fill it.

When a tree is planted, there is so much more going on than filling a gap. Habitat is created within the garden for birds and insects, fungi, bacteria, and microorganisms within the soil system.

Organic matter is being produced by the tree all of the time in the form of leaves which fall to the ground and add to the soil.

The tree is a carbon store, removing carbon dioxide from the air and using it to make food, creating timber, roots and leaves in the process.

Trees have a very cooling influence on the environment immediately surrounding them, and the temperature difference is notable standing in the middle of a tarmacadam car park and under the canopy of a tree on a sunny day.

It is important when planting to consider the conditions, urban or rural, exposed or sheltered, dry or wet, acid or alkaline, lots of space or restricted space, and then to plant accordingly to ensure success.

The right plant in the right place will reap rewards and there will be no regrets.

Maybe an evergreen tree is what you are looking for to give some structure all year round. Arbutus unedo, our own native strawberry tree, is a slow- growing large shrub or small tree producing white urn-shaped flowers in autumn followed by strawberry-like fruits.

Any native tree is going to be good for wildlife and this particular one prefers a neutral to acid soil in full or partial sun.

It is quite hardy down to minus 15 degrees, with populations found growing near Killarney and Glengariff. It can get to 10 metres in height and spread but will take many years to reach this size.

As the growing season is winding down, thoughts as ever start to wander into next year and what to grow or not in the kitchen garden, based on this year’s preferences and performances in the garden.

Seed suppliers need consideration and it is always good to support local if possible.

Brown Envelope seeds and Wolf seeds are both based in West Cork and have a variety of vegetable seeds on offer for sale.

A little further afield is True Harvest Seeds based in County Down, and they also offer a range of open pollinated, vegetable seed in addition to wild flower, green manures, and other seeds.

Using an open pollinated seed essentially means that seed can be collected from this plant and it will grow similarly to the parent plant.

Growing seeds collected from an F1 variety will result in a lot of variation as traits that were hidden in the parent plant reveal themselves in the next generation.

A recent visit to this fascinating seed charity in County Down revealed a passionate and knowledgeable seed collector, Debbie Gillies, who is the driving force behind this project.

She completed training on seed conservation techniques at Kew Garden’s Millennium seed bank in England, and the mission statement of the charity is to preserve our native flora, as she recognises the uniqueness of our native genetic material and the importance of maintaining that and not allowing hybridization with seed of wildflowers brought in from mainland Europe or even further away.

This project has its own seed bank where seeds are dried to 15% and then frozen to minus 20 degrees Celsius for long term storage.

Thrashers and drying machines are used to extract the seed and then dried down to ensure it will remain viable in storage for many years.

A fascinating process and it’s amazing to see what can be achieved using a small growing space. There is an ordinary polytunnel and a polytunnel with mesh on the sides, a freezer storage unit and an office space.

One of the biggest challenges to collecting seed is mice as they love to feed on all sorts of them. Snails too eat seeds and there can be insects on plant materiel when it is harvested, so collecting and storage techniques are important to get right.

Check out www.trueharvestseeds.org for more details about the project and how you can get involved.

Now is an ideal time to hone your seed-saving abilities as there are lots of plants setting seed now at the end of the growing season.

Many of our wild plants like devils bit scabious, hedge parsley, self heal and wild carrot are all brimming with seed.

When you are next out walking, check out the hedgerows for seed heads that could be collected now, and only take a third of seed available, leaving the rest to nature.

The seed is ready when it is brown and dry, and the best time for collection is on the afternoon of a dry and sunny day before the dew moves in.

It is a rewarding hobby and opens up a whole new world of fascinating seed types and pollination, hybridization and plant breeding.

The possibilities are endless, and it is important that we retain some autonomy over the plants we grow - and what better way than saving our own seeds?