Trees are for all seasons.

I am not new to gardening, but my ideas about gardening have changed and the result is a young garden with a radically new look.

When I left Victoria (Australia) to visit China at the end of May, autumn was well-advanced.

On my return winter was here and the whole appearance of my garden had changed. It enabled me to see the structure that has been created by the trees and shrubs during my past two years of planting.

In all there are about 50 trees growing, many of them are grafted weepers. They create shade in summer and are a manageable size for a relatively small yard. I remember in summer how excited I was by the appearance of the lush green foliage, the generation of a cool and shaded garden and quite simply the amount of growth that was taking place. Most of the trees are deciduous, allowing the feeble winter sunshine to fall on the understorey of shrubs and very much smaller bulbs and perennials.

As they have now been in place since last winter, I can now admire them in their leafless state and wait with anticipation for future seasons.

Before this, I had hardly planted a tree in my life. Looking back, I think I rejected the idea of them as being too slow-growing and I was in too much of a hurry. I would create shade for my plants by building a garden structure such as a pergola or shadehouse and save all this waiting.

Things have changed - I am now a tree enthusiast.

The pride of my collection is a grafted Prunus serrulata, a tree usually grown for its superb red-brown highly polished bark, not its rather insignificant flowers. Since mine is grafted, I have seen the progression through a spectacular display of flowers, a wide shady canopy of leaves to bare branches, all of them enhanced by a wonderful straight shining trunk which fills me with pleasure each time I look at it.

There are a number of weeping birches, Betula pendula, with glistening white trunks; a single Salix sp. with big catkins, attractive and persistent dark green leaves; weeping mulberries, Morus sp. with large light green leaves; a single (although I would like more) elm, Ulmus sp. with its green pleated leaves which colour to a lovely deep yellow in autumn; an evergreen alder, Alnus sp. with small dark green leaves and a dense canopy; Prunus subhirtella, the flowering cherries with pink and white flowers early in spring.

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