Top-notch Lollipop Trees: Uncle Fester's Favorites Revealed
Lollipop Trees: Little Wonders for Urban Spaces
Embrace the charm of lollipop trees, those compact, clipped beauties that are perfect for confined spaces! You'll adore them gracing your patio or balcony, flanking a doorway, or creating layers in a border. They're the stylish solution for urban landscapes or modern gardens - or even enhance the structure of a looser, cottage-style garden.
Most lollipop trees are evergreen, ensuring year-round appeal, but flowering and deciduous options are available too. To create your very own lollipop tree masterpiece, pick from our list of top choices:
- Sweetie-Bay Trees: Bay trees thrive in pots and look smashing on either side of a front door. Snip a few leaves for your culinary explorations.
- Sturdy-Privet: A tough shrub with small leaves, privet grows just about anywhere. It's a hardy hedge hero, stepping in when good ol' box may let you down.
- Festive-Holly: Ideal for topiary, holly's slow growth makes it an easy-care evergreen, providing added interest with variegated varieties.
- Elegant-Yew: With dark green, needle-like foliage, yew is easily shaped and makes a fantastic formal addition to any garden.
- Regal-Portuguese Laurel: Known as Prunus lusitanica, these trees boast long, glossy, dark green leaves on deep red stems, making an eye-catching display.
- Vibrant-Photinia: These shrubs have colorful young foliage, with 'Red Robin' being the most popular choice, providing red leaves in spring.
- Ever-Fragrant-Viburnum: Boasting dark, glossy leaves and winter-blooming, strongly scented pinkish-white flowers, Viburnum tinus is a delightful choice for your urban oasis.
- Sun-Soaked-Olive Trees: With attractive evergreen leaves, a slow-growing habit, and a compact size, these trees are ideal for urban gardens or contemporary spaces.
- Radiant-Flamingo Tree: The flamingo tree (Salix integra 'Hakuro-nishiki') offers a flamboyant display of marbled leaves in spring, transitioning to green in summer, and revealing coral-orange stems in autumn.
- Versatile-Euonymus: These tough, evergreen shrubs come in an array of variegated leaves, offering winter interest in shades of white, silver, and gold.
For those desiring flowering lollipop trees:
- Blossoming-Ceanothus
- Fragrant-Lilac
- Vibrant-Bottlebrush (Callistemon spp.)
- Vivid-Grevillea
- Gorgeous-Abutilon
- Stunning-Rhododendron
- Majestic-Magnolia
- Cheerful-Roses
- Alluring-Crab Apple
To help your lollipop tree thrive:
- Plant in a loam-based, peat-free compost like John Innes No.3.
- Refresh the top layer of compost each spring for nutrient-rich growth.
- Feed fortnightly in summer, following the instructions on the label.
- Repot every four to five years or root-prune the tree and replant it into the same pot with fresh compost.
- Lollipop trees growing in pots require more frequent watering than those in the ground.
hardy in cold weather, olives may need protection when young.
When pruning a lollipop tree:
- Lightly prune once or twice a year to maintain a neat shape with a dense habit.
- Use secateurs, not shears, on larger-leaved plants to avoid chopping leaves in half.
- Transform your urban space with a home-and-garden lollipop tree, such as the Sweetie-Bay Tree or Elegant-Yew, gracing your balcony, patio, or garden border.
- For those seeking a flowering lollipop tree, consider the Cheerful-Roses or Gorgeous-Abutilon, providing a burst of color to your modern garden or urban oasis.
