Bob Askew was Garden Media Guild award winner a year ago for his new writer work for Hortweek. He works for Kernock Park Plants as production director and was previously at Darby Nursery Stock and Brinkmans.
Here he names his top three tree genera for gardens, three underused tree genera and top five skinny trees for small gardens.
He believes the reliance of nurseries and garden centres on too few ornamental tree cultivars is a bad thing and is critical of overuse of Betula utilis var. jacquemontii and Crataegus Paul's Scarlet, and offers alternatives to them.
Askew also names three awful crab apple cultivars and five brilliant ones for gardens, as well as five brilliant but below-the-radar flowering cherries.
He delves into the pros and cons of growing trees in solid pots, versus airpots, or slotted pots.
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