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Browse all of our other Rowan trees, Whitebeam & Wild Service trees here.
Sheerwater Seedling is one of the smallest Rowan trees, reaching 9 metres, 30 feet at most, naturally forming a neat oval crown without pruning.
Like other Mountain Ashes, these deciduous trees are vigorous, quite shade tolerant and hardy with a long season of decorative value.
Clumps of small white flowers that look furry from a distance appear in May and bees love them.
By late summer, these develop into large bunches of brilliant red/orange berries which become a major food source for birds, especially blackbirds and thrushes.
Sheerwater Seedling's has an excellent autumn finale. By October, the leaves are turning into a rich mass of colour with the shiny berries drawing all of the greens, yellows and blazing reds into one visual feast.
Rowans are very pollution resistant thanks to their reliance on symbiotic fungi to supply minerals to their roots, these subterranean partners also act as a barrier to prevent the tree's roots from absorbing harmful compounds.
All of these qualities make Sheerwater Seedling very popular with owners of small town gardens.
If the birds don't get them first, humans can cook and eat the berries, although we would recommend the Edulis variety for its sweeter fruit if you plan to add Rowan berry jelly to your menu of regular garden produce.
Rowans are native to Britain and northern Europe. They were revered by ancient Scottish tribes, who called the rowan the Lady of the Mountain and it was taboo to cut them down for firewood. This was out of both awe and practical concerns: they can grow on barren, rocky mountain peaks where no other British trees will survive and the berries were an essential source of vitamin C. Some historians believe that the red lines on a kilt symbolise Rowan berries.Sorbus aucuparia Sheerwater Seedling has three natural enemies: rabbits, deer and chalk.
The first two will go for the tree's bark, so a guard is needed for the trunk if they are around.
Chalk and alkaline soils make life hard for the root's fungal assistants and the tree will not thrive as a result.
On the other side of the pH scale, they have no problem at all and are often found growing alongside pine trees, which also love acid soil.
Please watch our tree planting video for full planting instructions.
How Standard Trees are Measured:
All the plants in the ornamental trees section are graded as standards, which means that they are measured by their girth in centimetres 1 metre above ground level (basically, their trunk's waist measurement). They aren't measured by their height, which will vary.
So, a 6/8 standard has a trunk with a circumference of 6-8 centimetres and an 8/10 standard has a trunk 8-10 centimetres around.
This measurement makes no difference to the tree's final height. Most standards are between 2 - 3.5 metres tall, but this is just an average. We cannot tell you how tall your trees will be before we deliver them.