In message , Rusty Hinge
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from Blairadamwitch contains
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Looking for advice on a tree to plant in my small front garden.

Don't want anything too expensive and would prefer an evergreen but
I'm flexible. My soil is clay builders junk/rubble.

Anybody have any ideas?

Any advice is appreciated.

Winter Viburnum. Not evergreen, but over winter, is covered with small
fragrant almond-blossomlike flowers. Doesn't grow huge - as a tree
(grafted on to some Cornus stock or other) it rises to around ten feet,
as a shrub, about the same height, but suckers, to grow as a clump.

Can be pruned viciously.

I rather doubt that you can graft Viburnum x bodnantense onto a Cornus;
that'd be like grafting a rose onto a laburnum.

I wouldn't recommend it for as specimen for a lawn; in my humble opinion
it's better suited to an informal woodland garden. Winter honeysuckle
(Lonicera fragrantissima, or an allied species), again in my humble
opinion, would be a better choice, but it is also deciduous. But I don't
know what soil or climate it likes.

--
Stewart Robert Hinsley