How little can a big plant be?

Plants come to us in many different ways. They may have come as a cutting or a seed from another’s garden, as a gift, or maybe you saw one in a nursery and fell in love with it on the spot. Regardless of how you come by a plant, you need to consider how it will fit in your garden. The difficulty arises in knowing how big a plant will grow. Aspect – the orientation of a plant to the sun and wind – influences a plant’s growth habit, as does water supply and soil quality.

Here are a few tips to help you predict the likely growth habit of a particular plant.
Firstly, look around your neighborhood. This will give you a good idea what a plant is likely to do in your garden. Heavy soils or a solid rock base can stunt the growth of deeper rooted plants whereas a high canopy or shady conditions will make other plants grow taller and sparser as they reach for the light.

When you buy a plant with a label, especially a forest plant, the label could give a height range which seems extreme. An example of this is the Ivory Curl Tree (Buckinghamia celsissima) which can show a height range of 6 – 20 metres on the label. In a rainforest setting it will grow quite tall, but when situated in full sun a height of only 6 – 8 metres is all you can expect.

One way to allow you to grow some of the larger plants in a small garden is to prune them. Many trees can be pruned to a manageable height while still displaying the desirable characteristics of the larger tree. The Ivory Curl Tree can be maintained at a height of less than 4 metres and is often used in street plantings for the very reason that it looks great even with a regular pruning schedule.

The key point here is to decide how much effort you wish to put into a plant. A regular clipping, even once per year can keep a plant looking good. If you do it less frequently, it becomes a bigger job and may adversely affect the tree’s shape.

Advice & Tips