In just one week the world has over-canopied with the tender green of leaves and every street is thick with cherry blossom.

After seven days in artificially lit wards my eyes were dazzled by this great natural celebration that we call spring and as Greg drove me home to Red House we talked about trees. In his city garden he has 13 trees and plans as many more. Is this possible and is it desirable?

We both think it is and what is more we both champion trees other than the ubiquitous cherry, lovely though it is. I grew up in streets where the spent blossoms of the cherry ‘Kansan’ carpeted pavements in candy-floss pink and they still do. Greg has opted for crab apples which appear at the same time and whose leaves turn butter yellow instead of a glorious sunset orange but hold on to their small red apples, like so many Christmas baubles, for many months. Pictured here is Greg mowing the crab apple circle that stands within my orchard but in Greg’s garden four crab apples line a Victorian wall, handy pollinators for the espaliered ‘Scrumptious’ apple tree for as Greg points out, trees come in all sizes and several, including a magnolia and an acer in his own garden, sit happily in pots.

Several more acers spread their delicate branches within the garden and I dare say they will be joined by more in time for this is one tree that is beginning to rival the cherry in popularity and quite rightly so. There is no more graceful tree than the Japanese maple with its slender branches spread with leaves of such delicacy that they seem to float on the air. In my garden the acer ‘Bloodgood’ has opened its claret coloured leaves amongst the birches and in autumn it will flare scarlet.

Greg’s mature acer that begins with scarlet leaves then slowly turns to green before flaring up like a bonfire in the autumn makes a fine specimen tree to stand alone and be admired from all angles. For anyone who is hankering after a tree to take centre stage let me recommend Cornus controversa variegata, whose tiers of pretty creamy white and green leaves topped by cream flowers in spring earns its common name of ‘wedding cake tree’.

There is another cornus that is rarely seen in our gardens and that is Cornus florida, the American dogwood that will be flowering now in almost every garden throughout New York State for this is the American equivalent of our ornamental cherry and it bears equally showy flowers in pink and white, but unlike the cherry these are composed of four large bracts rather than fragile petals. They load the spreading branches of America’s springtime favourite and quite why it should be rare over here is a mystery. Its smaller cousin, Cornus kousa which is a native of the Far East is sometimes seen although it is more of a shrub than a tree. Nurseries growing C. florida are few and the cost high which is more the pity as for me it epitomises American spring.