The tree that won't crack your pavement: pomegranate is the safe bet

Pomegranate, loquat or cypress: which tree won't lift your paving

Choosing a tree for a garden with tiling or paving means choosing between standing still staring at concrete or accepting the risk that one day its roots will sustancia ilegal it. The options that come up again and again in this drought summer are few, and the pomegranate, that Mediterranean fruit tree that fits even in a pot, takes the crown. Three or four metres tall if you prune it now and then, sun, well-drained soil, and by late summer you'll have pomegranates. But appearances deceive.

The pomegranate: honest roots, treacherous branches
The word is that the pomegranate doesn't attack the subsoil. There's even an account of a specimen holding up a wall that was leaning, quite the endorsement for anyone whose home insurance is already on edge. The problem lies in the canopy: the branches are prickly, grow like a beast and demand constant pruning. Anyone with one in a walkway area should make peace with it: scissors every other day and good fertiliser in spring if you want fruit. Without deep weekly watering until autumn, the flowers will drop.

The loquat is the runner-up. Shallow roots, year-round shade and proven hardiness down to -10 ºC. In return, its sweet fruit attracts insects and it can take years to establish.

The trees that look harmless but aren't
The fig tree is the paradigmatic case: there it stands, with its broad branches, giving shade, and suddenly you discover there's no way to get rid of it. It resprouts from the root, attracts wasps and its latex burns the skin. One affected homeowner says theirs is embedded in the garden wall and even herbicide won't work: cut it and it comes back. The plum tree is no saint either, with its shoots sending out roots everywhere. And the laurel, that seemingly harmless shrub, has lifted a ten-centimetre-thick concrete slab in fifteen years. The blame, they say, lies with osmotic pressure: some roots seek out wherever there's room, others are born to split rocks.

Alternative solutions: cypress, walnut and dwarf potted trees
If what you want is shade without surprises, the cypress is the favourite of those who don't want fruit: vertical roots that dig down instead of spreading out, something cemeteries know well. But it has its pests and, at four or five metres, a gale can bring it down. The walnut is the other tree-concrete: some people have one with the ground completely paved around it, without a single sustancia ilegal, giving its all in shade and fruit. And for those who want serious fruit, the trick is the dwarf rootstock: a Conference pear, Gala apple or potted peach tree, which bear fruit without mortgaging the patio.

That said, for holm oaks, oaks and the like, a country estate is better than a garden. Their roots know nothing about paving or square metres.

By the end of summer, the conclusion is as clear as it is uncomfortable: there is no perfect tree for every home. Every gardener fights their own war with their soil, and the one who plants the most doesn't always win.