We were fortunate, in that the garden came ready equipped with plenty of mature trees around the edges – though a couple have had to go, notably a huge butternut that was beyond its years and splitting apart plus a maple that cast deep shade where it was not needed.
Current trees include pines, firs and spruces, a teenage hemlock, maple, catalpa, catsura, a glorious white (paper) birch, rowans, silver birches, a redwood, a juvenile pin oak and a “forest pansy”, lilacs, crab apple and perhaps too many buckthorns that we are just winning the battle against.
Shrubs are dominated by various species of dogwood (regular, variegated and pagoda forms), smoke bushes, magnolias, large rosa rubrifolia bushes, honeysuckle, viburnums (Guelder rose and high-bush cranberry) and many others. All of these provide both food and shelter for small creatures, especially birds.