Prunus

The excellent cherries can provide interest all through the year, with at times unmatched flowering, particularly from Japanese cherries, many in spring but also autumn. Colours are normally white to pink, with semi-double and fully-double forms. Autumn foliage can be eye-catching, whilst others can produce astounding bark, Prunus serrula. Some species will fit into a small garden, P. tenella, P. triloba forms. Along with the garden cherry, P. avium, there are other edible species, almond, P. dulcis, apricot, P. armeniaca and peach, P. persica.

Especially those species that flower in spring (in all forms aside from the doubled cultivars) are an invaluable source of early season forage for bumblebees and other pollinators, including butterflies such as peacock and small tortoisehell. The native wild cherry and bird cherry, as well as blackthorn, provide an autumn fruit bounty for birds such as blackbirds and pigeons, and small mammals such as voles, while the dense, suckering shrubby species form ideal nesting habitats for all manner of hedgerow birds, from dunnocks to whitethroats.