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I'm interested in featuring natives in my front garden redesign. Our front garden is really small - there are probably 10 feet of space in front of our house before the sidewalk starts. At that size, i'd rather plant a shrub that can be trained as a tree than to let the shrub branch out at the ground level, effectively eliminating the possibility of a path through the garden once it reaches full size.
My favorite native shrub is winterberry holly, and i would really like to plant a couple (male and female) to add some winter interest to our block. Has anyone here trained winterberry holly as a tree, or do you at least know enough about the plant to hedge an educated guess about whether or not it takes heavy pruning and shaping well?
My thinking is that a shrub tree would fit better in the garden than a small *tree* tree, and we really need some canopy and height in that garden. So I hope this is a workable idea! I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Its growth pattern makes tree-forming a bit of a challenge but I have seen it done and it was lovely. As long as you're up to the challenge I'd say go for it!
