The most important thing you can do for a tree that will give it a long and happy life is to plant it in the right place.

Choose your trees to suit your site

A tree usually lives for much longer than a human but cannot move even a foot from the spot where it is planted for it's whole life. It's planting site is essential for it's success. Tree and site must suit each other. You must understand the tree's needs and whether a given site will meet them well.

Things that render a site unsuitable for a tree

Not enough space for the tree to grow to full size
If a tree is constrained by buildings, power lines or roads it will sooner or later have to either be regularly pruned into an unnatural shape or felled. If you inherit a site with unsuitable trees it is almost always going to save you long term expense and improve your site if you remove the trees and start afresh. Regular pruning of large trees is expensive and unless the trees have been trained to a given shape from an early age it never looks ideal.

Unfavourable conditions for the species
If the site is too wet, too dry, too windy or the soil has the wrong pH, the tree will simply do badly or fail. Then you can have wasted a few years hoping it will grow.

Nuisance to people
Some trees have poisonous or irritating fruits (e.g. Laburnum) or leave honey dew residue on parked cars in summer (e.g. Lime). These species are unsuitable for some sites such as children's play areas or driveways.

The blue Atlas Cedar is a beautiful BIG tree....

....don't plant it under a telegraph pole because you will be pruning it every other year.

These Japanese Maples are never going to get too big. They frame this path just right.

Tree takes over the garden
Trees can create dense shade that suppresses underlying vegetation as they grow. Some trees proliferate by suckers and create thickets (e.g. Sumach), other trees actually hormonally suppress competing vegetation (e.g. yew and holly). If the tree competes with your garden instead of complementing it, the beauty of your garden will be lost.

Tree dries out the soil and causes subsidence
If a clay soil is shrinkable, a tree, especially a high water demanding tree, can cause subsidence in buildings. On such soils one should be cautious about planting or retaining high -risk species (e.g. oak, willow, poplar, cypress, eucalyptus) near buildings.

If in any doubt about what tree to purchase ask an expert. We would be happy to help or research the trees you like to see if they are suitable.

If everyone followed these few tips we would have much less felling and pruning work coming our way!