mystery tree
Gardening Grandma
Posts: 1,746
Hi. Five years ago, while I was seriously ill, a seedling came up behind our greenhouse, next to the boundary wall. In ordinary circumstances, I'd have pulled it out, but it was already around five feet high when, three years later, I resumed gardening. Now it is over twenty feet high! I was glad it came up, because it provides a green backdrop to my small garden and provides a screen from the houses behind, but obviously if it is a large tree I'll have to have it taken down asap. It has a divided trunk (i.e. two trunks) of a pale, greyish colour, and single, mid-green, serrated, single leaves alternating rather than in pairs. They look rather like the leaves of a hornbeam or wild cherry, but I can find no catkins, flowers or even seeds, though there must be something, I suppose. Any guidance would be gratefully received!
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Hi Gardening Grandma - a photo could be helpful but from what you say about the rate of growth eucalyptus springs to mind. However, cannot be sure as the leaves are usually not serrated, in my experience. Flowers are very small and insignificant so easily missed.
If it is eucalyptus it can be pollarded perhaps without having to be removed - professional advice or view of experienced friend/neighbour might be a good idea.
Eucalyptus shrubs/trees tend to be evergreen so if your tree is deciduous this response from me can be ignored !!! Also, after time, some varieties shed their bark which is an attractive feature, in my view, as it makes it more interesting !!
Perhaps other forumites will have more suggestions !!
Eucalyptus was my first thought, but I'm not sure about the serrated edged leaf. Whether it's deciduous or evergreen would help too. You could try this http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/tree-identification/. Alternatively just post a photo
As an aside if anyone has a smartphone there's a good little app called TreeID. There's also a Bird Song ID, so while you're identifying the tree you can check out what birds are in it!
That app sounds brilliant quercus-ruber as this morning whilst in the garden I could hear a bird which I did not recognise and whilst I could not identify which of the trees it was in I'm sure the app would have helped - am going to investigate now !!!
It's very good. Freaks my cats out when I play it indoors - which I do when I'm being mean
Thanks so much for your response. It is a deciduous tree- I should have said this. Left to itself, I think it would have quite a round head. As I said, the leaves look like hormbeam, but that would mean a jolly big tree, I believe. But do big trees usually have a divided trunk? It looks to me as though it will be a relatively small tree, but this could be because it is just plain young. I don't want to bring down next door's wall. Even as things are, it will be diufficult to get it down without invading other people's gardens. I have already visited the website you mention, and brought the choice down to about two or three trees, but I was too ignorant to go any further. None seemed to fit completely. I will post a photograph if I can work out how to do it!!
Here it is, then - I hope!
This is the whole thing. You can see that the tree is in a corner of the garden, right against the rear boundary and next to what we grandly refer to as the summerhouse.
Lovely photos Gardening Grandma. The tree does look a fine specimen but I can understand why you might think it's not in the right place !! I'm afraid I can't place the identity of the tree but the leaves look familiar !!!
Sorry I cannot be more helpful but I'm sure others will know what it is from the photos.
Forgot to say quercus_ruber that I downloaded theTreeID app and think it's really good - certainly makes one think about the detail of tree characteristics. I'm going to try the birdsong app next. Although we don't have cats we do have some that visit the garden - not sure what they would make of it !!!
Glad you like it fotofit. You can also record you own songs with the birdsongID - bird songs that is, not you singing, though I'm sure that would sound very nice