Does anyone know anything about gardening?

I was going to do the relaxed beach look aka club tropicana.

But the truth is, I want a lawn. Current thinking paved border inset with palms, ornamental grasses and olive trees aka club mediterraneo, also simple man cave at the back, clad in shou sugi ban panels. to mirror future house extension.

This is not my extension design btw, posted in the architecture thread a few months ago, but I am loving the panels against the brick facade.

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..

Also someone here was asking about horizontal fence panels.

I remember seeing sawn could have been tantalised cedar or larch planks roughly 200 x 38 stacked between concrete slotted posts, which looked amazing with brass cross bracing for security. I should have photographed it.

Ooooh, tantalise me! That particular treatment has been banned for years, neither larch nor cedar tends to be treated at all. Either way, you would be needing deep pockets for a fence like that. There is one of similar construction about a mile from me, but I think it's probably treated softwood, I'll photograph it. Just to give an idea, 9x2 (nominal) treated softwood is around £5/m, so a 6'6 by 6' panel would cost about £80 in timber, plus posts, concrete and labour.

I really want a silver birch tree but I have a feeling its a bad idea in a 9x5m garden.
Anyone any thoughts/opinions/recommendations?

Thats not miles away from what I wanted... ended up with something simpler but can confirm black gladding against brick is nice.

tantalised cedar or larch planks

'tanalised'

This and following comments from @mespilus are worth pointing out:

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13249218/

Lovely trees, but they grow and grow and grow. I've got one in my back garden, and had to have it reduced by about a third recently. It could dominate a garden of that size quite quickly I fear.

If you can tolerate coppicing it when it gets too tall,
this variety might let you keep it to a reasonable size.

Yeah tantalise me, why don’t you.. or cover me in creosote.. I can’t afford the plank method of fencing just something I saw last year.

btw I wasn’t planning to scorch treated timber for cladding man cave. I am hoping my neighbour will gift me a load of marine ply left by his builder.. use that as a substrate fixed to timber studs then over clad shou sugi ban planks with loss tite screws.

Set up a working space outside with a sheet of flame resistant board (vermiculite) table frame, propane gas bottle and a hand torch to do the ‘shou sugi ban’ thang on untreated larch boards

You tease, you do like a banned substance don't you? Creosote was banned for amateur use in 2003, as a professional I can't recommend a Creosote dousing for the uninitiated. Perhaps sir would like a rubbing down with something mild from Cuprinol, mixed with baby oil for lubrication?

Did you know that an average of 15 babies are crushed to provide a litre of baby oil?

How many waifer thin mints do you need to crush to make a litre of creosote?

Weeping Silver Birch are lovely I think and you can keep them under control a little easier. Have a lot of regular ones at my work and they can get surprisingly massive, rather quickly

Silver birch is lovely if you don’t suffer with hayfever. Got one from Wollies about twenty years ago in the old flat for a couple of quid, it grew tall and thin, leaves golden yellow in autumn.

We planted a silver birch (betula Grayswood Ghost) a couple of years ago - it has one of the whitest barks and will hopefully look like the stock picture below. Unfortunately the plans for the end of the garden have changed and I had to move it ten yards today, fingers crossed it survives.

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Thats going to be one hell of a tree! I think I'm begging to realise they are too big for my garden which is the smallest garden in the world. Thanks for all the recommendations though folks!

Ha, well it’s main job is going to be obscuring the neighbours behind and offering a little shade to the greenhouse which is going on the pea shingle base.

Have you considered a nice Acer? I once took a picture of a Cornus Kousa which was stunning - just don’t ask the price.

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TBH I have no real clue what I'm doing... my garden is super small but I want to break up the visual flow of it a bit with a tree. We already have a small Apple tree by the house and I'd live another near the other end, the problem is if it's a bit dense (foliage wise) it will cast shade on the only sunny part of the garden (the back). This is pretty much my dream place house and garden wise.. https://www.themodernhouse.com/sales-list/blurton-road-ii/

We have one. It's about 10m and spans the width of the garden. It's lovely but as it gets bigger, its drawing more nutrients from the rest of the garden. We inherited it with the property. I'd avoid.

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Didn’t even think about how it would impact other plants.
Yeah sadly going to have to swerve.

Should I be mulching around the gazillion bulbs we planted that have all decided to shoot?

Fucking leaves.
Not even my fucking trees.

Fucking leaves.

Not even my fucking trees.

This, very much this. We have about five 50-60ft copper beech trees in the school field opposite our house and very overgrown ash next door. Every year the leaves sail up the side of our house and do their best to completely kill off my lawn. I asked for a leaf vac from my dad for my birthday, he told me to use a rake and gave me a battery strimmer which I've never used, will probably never use and furthermore didn't have all the bits needed to assemble it.

Leaves are the one thing the savagely destructive wind tunnel our garden sits in is good for.

Trees all around, but as I look out now they are all congregating in two spots. One small messy pile I need to move. One large drift in the bottom corner next to the compost heap that I can take or leave.

Still given the choice, I'd rather sweep leaves than constantly repair and reinforce fence panels.