What to do About the Serviceberry

I looked specifically for a single trunk Autumn Brilliance serviceberry, and got this nice one from Sooner Plant Farm in 2022. 

As a thin, skinny thing, it makes a delicate vertical accent next to the rain barrel. There are emitters right there, so it gets water.

It will be a lovely tree.

But as soon as I planted it I knew it was not in the right place. It is going to be far too big to be sited between the barrel, the fence, the house and the juniper.

It is just a couple feet from the house wall and the fence. It is smack under the canale. Right now the rainwater from the canale pours into the rain barrel next to it, but once the canopy fills in, the branches will overhang the rain barrel, and water will pour down on the tree.

I want to take it out. I need to take it out.

I should dig it up and transplant it -- it should still be small enough for me to do that myself. But put it where? Any other spot in my garden will present the same issue: no space for a tree with a 15 to 20 foot spread.

Yes, it's a small patio tree. Yes, it will be even smaller in my challenging conditions. But I don't have room.

Ideally it could go next to the deck and shade the patio alcove. But it would dominate that bit of open space, crowd the umbrella which we really need for specific shade in certain spots, and it would be hard to walk under to get around the deck, even limbed up.

It wants good moisture so it would have to be transplanted somewhere that the irrigation reaches.

My goal had been to get some shade on the big window. The hot eastern sun in the summer is a lot.

And we look straight out the wall of glass to the driveway and the rise beyond, with no privacy when the blinds are up.

The road comes down that rise at an angle and allows cars and sidewalk traffic a view into the house. I wanted something tall to partially shade and partly block the window.

My gardening answer to landscape problems has always been: 

    🌳 plant a tree. 

But a tree in that tight spot under the canale isn't going to work, For shading and blocking to be effective, a tree would have to be sited a little further away, and the juniper and driveway are there. 

So, despite the cost and my plans and the need for screening at the window . .  I'll take it out.

But with three emitters there, I'd like to put something in to look at from inside the house. Nothing big, no tree, and it wouldn't even be seen from the driveway side.

It would only be visible from the windows.

I've struggled with the Jackmanii clematis under the rose in the guest room window corner, so . . . 

 . . .  I may move the small spiral tutuer from there to this nicely irrigated spot and plant another Jackmanii clematis (or transplant the struggler if it's worth it.) 

I'll have kind of a flowery scene developing in this empty corner by the rain barrel -- some hollyhocks if they ever do anything, and the Kintzley's Ghost honeysuckle and Red Cascade rose scrambling over the fence from the other side.

I've had trouble getting Jackmanii clematis to grow here in the spots I've tried (it was huge and rampant in CT). 

But if it does do well next to the rain barrel and with irrigation, and if it grows bigger than the small tower supports, which it did in my old garden, it can be trained to grow over and into the juniper.

A.I. generated

I asked Google Gemini to show me what it might look like. The result got close enough -- this is an A. I. mockup of what I'd see from inside →

One possibility is to replant the poor little serviceberry in the kitchen courtyard. 

It would still be too big for the space, almost as close to the house and fence, but with open room on the walkway side, and it could be limbed up enough to walk by under it. It offers more of an anchor there, and shade on the hot kitchen door.

I've long thought about something more substantial and singular in this busy flower patch between the gate and the kitchen door. 

I'd like to simplify the look. The tree would hide the Kintzley's Ghost vine somewhat , but the honeysuckle will eventually scramble over and along the fence top more.

The key will be to keep the serviceberry narrow and limbed up.

The butterfly bush in the corner needs a good hacking to give it a fuller, shorter shape.

A.I.'s idea of what a tree in the spot would look like

There's irrigation there, it's a little bit further away from a canale, it offers an anchor that this little spot is missing, and it would make a shady walk from gate to house if I can limb it up enough.

Another A.I. rendering if I can keep it pruned narrow

OR . . .

Another A.I. rendering if it ever gets this big and full

I do like this idea. But would it seem to cramped in that little garden spot?