Best Trees for Your Garden

Pleasance Crawford is the co-author of The Canadian Landscape and Garden
History Directory and Garden Voices: Two Centuries of Canadian Garden
Writing.

When Allen Paterson was director of the Royal Botanical Gardens in
Ontario in the 1980s, many Canadian horticulturists got to know this
knowledgeable plantsman, inveterate traveller, engaging speaker, and
prolific writer. Since his return to his native Britain he has created a
new garden of his own, become a distinguished advisor to the board of
the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and continued to observe the similarities
and differences in gardening on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Best
Trees for Your Garden is vintage Paterson.

The book begins with three philosophical but highly practical chapters
on the interrelatedness of trees, landscapes, and human beings. It
continues with serious yet friendly advice on observing as many tree
species as possible, choosing wisely, planting carefully, and nurturing
faithfully. It then presents an 86-page “directory” of broad-leaved
trees and a 22-page one of conifers. There is nothing formulaic about
Paterson’s rich descriptions of his 300-plus chosen species and
cultivars. In each entry he mentions the plant’s characteristics and
natural habitat; into many he weaves anecdotes, literary references, and
famous examples; and in all he synthesizes his decades of thoughtful
observation.

The book ends with two pages of “trees with special attributes”;
one page of zone maps for North America and the British Isles; five
pages of names and addresses of arboreta and tree nurseries; and a
five-page nominal and topical index. Unusually—but not surprisingly,
given Paterson’s intellectual grasp of subjects botanical—there is
no list of references.

It would be unfortunate if someone who loves trees but has no garden
were to overlook this book. Its delightfully readable text is generously
illustrated with gleaming colour photographs.