There are few things that are more idyllic than the traditional ‘English country garden’, and achieving our own is something that many of us gardeners strive to do daily. Of course, it is not vital for a beautiful garden to contain nothing other than plants and flowers native to the UK, but it can help to attaining that level of English perfection in the garden. If you want to create your own real ‘English country garden’, without borrowing beautiful plants from other places in the world, this guide could provide you with the top trees, shrubs and flowers that are native to the UK that you could introduce into your own outside space.
Flowers
Flowers are easy to handle, easy to experiment with and easy to replace if you change your mind, which means they are the best place to start if you want to introduce UK native plants into your garden. These are some of our favourites:
Foxglove
This is a definite favourite in gardens across the UK and will inject a pop of colour into your own. The foliage can be poisonous, but, providing you don’t interfere with them, will not cause you any harm.
Cornflower
Not only is the the colour of this flower enough to lift your mood, blue butterflies feed from its nectar- another positive!
Buttercups
Even though these flowers prefer damp soils , the yellow beauties do tend to make an appearance in most conditions, meaning almost anyone can enjoy them!
Shrubs
Shrubs do require a little more effort than flowers, but are a good in between if you don’t have enough room for a full tree, or want to bulk out your garden.
Field Rose
The large white flowers on this shrub are typically followed by red fruits, ensuring a constant supply of colour in the garden. It will also grow to around 2.5m, meaning it would be suitable for most regular-sized gardens.
Dog Rose
A larger shrub, growing to around 4m, whose flowers have white to pale pink petals and appear in Summer. It is sizeable, though, and best suited to larger garden spaces.
Creeping Willow
Suitable for most gardens as it grows to no more than 1m, its yellow flowers will add a burst of colour into your garden.
Trees
Trees may seem unrealistic if you have a smaller garden, but there is something to suit (almost everybody):
Alder
Best in wet soils, an Alder tree will grow to around 25 metres at maturity and produces a mixture of red and dark yellow flowers.
Wild Cherry
This medium tree boasts the most beautiful array of white flowers in the Spring, which then turn orange in the autumn, providing you with almost year-long colour!
Elder
Bearing shiny black fruits that follow ivory white flowers, this small tree rarely grows taller than 8m and will thrive even on extremely chalky sites, meaning it is suitable for gardens in which chalky soil is usually an issue.
What are your favourite UK native trees, shrubs and flowers? Have your say in the comments!
