Summer 2013: Albizia ‘Summer Chocolate’ & Hydrangea ‘Ayesha’

Jul12

Yes, Virginia. You can satisfy those chocolate cravings without worrying about calories. It’s a piece of cake in the garden with Albizia julibrissin ‘Summer Chocolate’.

This remarkable tree and I have quite a history.

I’m reminded of a bit of popular garden wisdom: “You should not give up on a plant until you kill it three times.” Silly advice, isn’t it? There are too many fabulous plants and—regardless of the size of your property—never enough planting space to be saddled for years with non-performers. In my garden, as a general rule, it’s one strike and you’re out. Yet every rule has an exception. Reason flew out the window when it came to Albizia julibrissin ‘Summer Chocolate’, the purple-foliage mimosa tree.

When I lived in California, I admired the green-leaf mimosa with its graceful fern-like foliage and captivating pink flowers that attracted masses of colorful butterflies. But it wasn’t until I saw the purple-leaf variety in a Hamptons garden that admiration turned to obsession.

Over the years I searched it out, bought and planted it twice, and twice it died. But the third time was golden. A beautiful, well-grown plant survived the worst winter in memory and flourishes in my zone 7 garden.

Mimosas aren’t picky about soil ph but they do like full sun, and lots of it. The best I can offer is a few hours of filtered sun, so my tree may not produce flowers. Disappointing to be sure, but for me (sorry butterflies) it’s all about the foliage. (See photo below).

Another unique beauty, Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Ayesha’, was acquired this Spring. The mophead flowers, made up of distintive, tiny, spoon-shaped florets, start off pink, but in my acid soil turn a striking, violet-pink. And the florets eventually open to reveal amazing blue centers, providing a wonderful contrast with the bluest of blue lacecap hydrangeas planted in the same bed. Ayesha also boasts outstanding, thick, dark-green healthy foliage, so important in my organic garden. (Photos below.)

I purchased H.m.’Ayesha’ from Hydrangeas Plus, hydrangeasplus.com, which offers an extensive mailorder selection of healthy, blooming size plants.

There are so many extraordinary hydrangeas to choose from, one needn’t be limited to the same-old, same-old, over-hyped, H.’Endless Summer’. As for example, one of my favorites, H. macrophylla ‘Bottstein’, produces a colorful array of mopheads in shades of purple, blue and pink. All at the same time. Even in the same flower. (See photos below.) And in the Fall , its foliage turns a rich, dark, red-purple. ( For photos and information about other exquisite hydrangeas, see my earlier Blog post of July 8, 2012, “Summer 2012: Heavenly Hydrangeas”.)

Fabulous Bloomers: Halesia carolina ‘Wedding Bells’ & Nemesia fruticans ‘Opal Innocence’

May15

Luther Burbank, the prominent American horticulturist, once said, “Flowers always make people better, happier…they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.” So true. Here are two fabulous flowering plants to savor in your own backyard:

Halesia carolina ‘Wedding Bells’ (Carolina Silverbell z.4-8)

Halesia carolina is an enchanting, native understory tree, requiring rich, well-drained, moist, acid soil. For over fifteen years, in my shady garden, it has been a reliable and profuse May bloomer with no pest or disease problems. The cultivar ‘Wedding Bells’ flaunts larger snowy-white bellflowers than the species and to my mind is a showier performer. In the Fall, the tree produces interesting 4-winged seed cases which carry on the show until frost. I also grow a pink-flowering Halesia but while the flowers are lovely, the tree lacks vigor.

Nemesia fruticans ‘Opal Innocence’ (z.9-10)

As soon as I saw this annual dazzler, I was a goner. Moreover, in addition to its incredible color and irresistible charm, Opal is fragrant and in constant bloom from Spring to Fall. Grow in sun or part shade in the ground or in containers. That is if you can find it— I think I bought them all. ( Mine came from Halsey Farm & Nursery in Watermill, N.Y.)

Addendum to Post,”Beauty and the Bees: Going, Going, Gone?”

If you invite your bees over for brunch, be sure (bee sure?) to serve coffee. According to a recent scientific study, reported in the British publication, The Garden ( May 2013), bees feeding on nectar containing caffeine—present in the coffee plant’s flowers—have dramatically improved memories: They are three times more likely to remember a flower’s scent, and thus remember a good nectar source. ( A great tip—for the bees. Would that coffee had a memory improving effect on me. I certainly drink enough of it.)

Early Spring: Snowy White Dazzle For Shade

Apr16

PIERIS x ‘Spring Snow’ (z. 5-8)

I love all things Pieris! With handsome evergreen foliage, vibrant, colorful new growth, and fragrant early Spring bell flowers that attract both fat bumble bees and stunning white-edged, dark-chocolate-brown Mourning Cloak butterflies, no wonder it’s one of my all time favorite garden plants. Oh, and did I fail to mention that it’s deer resistant? (Actually, over 25 years, I’ve planted a good number of Pieris and they have all been deer-proof.) Moreover, all my Pieris are grown in shade and have been disease free. (Be aware that Pieris grown in sun is vulnerable to lace-bug attack which can cause serious damage.)

Pieris x ‘Spring Snow’ is a cross between our native Pieris floribunda and Pieris japonica and inherited outstanding attributes from both parents: rich dark green foliage from japonica and masses of upright, luminous, snowy-white flowers from floribunda. But this hybrid-child also surpasses its parents with a profusion of bloom that cloaks the shrub with dazzling, dense, very fragrant white flowers in early Spring.

And Spring Snow is a slow, compact grower, never exceeding three feet in height, making it an ideal plant for a small or large garden. Moreover, it’s a can-do, easy-care plant. Good winter, bad winter—it doesn’t matter. P. x ‘Spring Snow’ will bloom reliably for you every year and its foliage will be bright, healthy green. Just provide well-drained acid soil and shade. And enjoy.

A few other Pieris favorites are: P. japonica ‘Mountain Fire’ which flaunts fire-engine-red new growth that turns bronze and then dark green; P. x ‘Brouwer’s Beauty’, another floribunda-japonica hybrid with light green new growth, an exquisite contrast with its mature dark green foliage; and P.’Flaming Silver’ which astonishes with scarlet-red new growth that turns pink, then yellow, and finally variegated green and white. All fabulous woody ornamental shrubs.

Finally, please indulge me. Magnolia x loebneri ‘Merrill’ demands a mention—and a photo shoot. So, if you want a beautiful, vigorous, hardy tree, that blooms with an abundance of pristine white flowers that perfume the air with sweet fragrance, at roughly the same time as P. ‘Spring Snow,’ you can’t do better than my “very pushy”, albeit beloved, Merrill. (See also my previous post on M. x loebneri ‘Merrill’, entitled Identity Theft, November 26, 2012.)

2013: What’s New?

Jan5

Happy New Year!

An early-bird 2013 catalog has arrived from one of my favorite mail-order nurseries and my order is in . Here are some of the plants that have caught my eye:

Camellia Forest Nursery:

Cryptomeria japonica ‘Champagne’ is a sport of C.j ‘Nana Albospica’, but is more vigorous and grows twice as fast. It has white new growth which takes on a purple cast in winter. Ten year size is 8 feet tall by 6 feet wide. Zones 6-8.

Cryptomeria japonica ‘Knaptonensis’ is a slow growing dwarf with brilliant white new growth and very short needles that curve around the branches. Zones 6-8.

Both C.j. ‘Champagne’ and C.j.’Knaptonensis’ like moist, acid, well-drained soil and some shade—especially shade from intense afternoon sun.

Symplocos paniculata (Sapphireberry)

Symplocos paniculata (Sapphireberry) is not a new plant but almost impossible to find in the trade. In the spring, small white fragrant flowers cover this large shrub (or small tree) and in the fall it produces masses of sapphire-blue berries. Sapphireberry is a social animal and likes company: plant several to ensure cross pollination and abundant fruit. Zones 5-8. ( And do check out Camellia Forest’s exquisite and extensive camellia offerings. )

You can easily access the nursery catalog by going to LINKS on this blog.

Next time: Part 2 ( more nurseries, more plants)

Summer 2012: Rose-of-Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus)

Jul21

In the last post, I mentioned that hydrangeas like to make whoopee. Yet of all the flowering plants in the garden, Rose-of-Sharon is by far the whoopiest. I started with two plants, one with white flowers and the other with blue. Now, years later, I have so many colorful, blooming volunteers –white, blue, dark pink , light pink, multi shades of purple etc. — I don’t know what to do with them all. And they keep coming nonstop. My own fault. I’m so curious to see what colors will turn up, I hesitate to weed out the masses of tiny seedlings. Mea culpa!

If you want to avoid that sort of thing, there are sterile (mostly sterile?) plants available, like the lovely, pure white H.s. ‘Diane’ a.k.a. ‘Diana’. Years ago I was awestruck by the beauty of the allee at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. (Unfortunately, I’m told it no longer exists). But without self-sown seedlings, I would miss the joy of anticipation and surprise. In fact, when the plants produced sports with green and white variegated foliage, I was absolutely giddy. In my world, cause for celebration.

Rose-of-Sharon is an easy plant to grow: it will flourish in sun or shade, acid or sweet soil, and while it will naturally grow to tree size, it can also be hard-pruned and thrive as a small shrub with large flowers. Though reportedly prone to an assortment of pests and diseases, that’s not my experience; in my organic garden, these reliable summer bloomers have been uber-healthy and problem-free.

Do try them. With Mother Nature’s help, you may even wind up with a sensational volunteer that will knock your socks off.

Prunus ‘Snow Fountain’

Nov30

My spring garden is full of wonder and surprise. One year I was startled by the appearance of a diminutive red tulip, which grew right through the brown-stemmed skeleton of a withered ageratum. How did the tiny bulb get there? Its a mystery to me.

Equally puzzling are the single daffodils that suddenly unfurl hundreds of feet from the bulbs I planted. Daffodils naturalize, but do they also fly?

Perhaps a bird is the carrier. But only one intent on suicide would molest a toxic daffodil bulb; birds are, in fact, health freaks, sensible enough to prefer rose hips which contain 400 times more vitamin C per ounce than oranges.

And that may explain the rosa rugosa which sprang from the middle of a thick mound of juniper on the north side of the house. An unlikely spot for a rose, so unlikely that I’m rather inclined to think its the work of a squirrel, the ultimate haphazard gardener.

To my amazement and delight, the garden plays host to a wide assortment of extraordinary volunteers, so I’m especially careful when I rake and weed because I never know what wonderful plants may magically appear. Like seedlings of my treasure , Prunus ‘Snow Fountain’.

Twenty years ago at the Philadelphia Flower Show I saw this luminous weeping cherry for the first time. I had to have her. Easier said than done. She was not labeled; she was not part of a sponsored exhibit; no one at the show knew who she was or to whom she belonged. Kidnapping crossed my mind but this angel’s 12-foot wide arching wingspan smothered in fragrant, snowy white blossoms was a tad much for the Metroliner.

What’s a crazed, lovesick, gardener to do? Hit the phones, of course. You know, six degrees of separation. It worked. She was identified and two months later she was mine. (Not the Philly goddess. A lovely, young New York model).

And we are living happily ever after. Snow Fountain is very healthy, blooms reliably and heavily every year, and flaunts dazzling Fall foliage in shades of burnt orange and red. When her flowers fade, she produces tiny ornamental fruit that songbirds love. And thus, the wonderful cherry tree seedlings which pop up in the garden every now and again.

Ain’t Mother Nature grand?

Identity Theft

Nov26

Where is the FBI when you really need them? Con artists stole my darling Merrill’s identity, and he is so bloody mad it’s enough to make his teeth curl. That is, if he had teeth.

Merrill is a gorgeous, fragrant, white flowering magnolia, la crème de la crème of magnolias. No wonder imposters abound. A few years ago I was reading Montrose: Life in A Garden by plantswoman Nancy Goodwin, when at pages 37 and 38 I was confronted by a magnolia purporting to be Merrill, flaunting pink buds and flowers with pink stripes. There’s no pink in Merrill! I should know; he has graced my garden in Southampton, New York for over twenty years.

Yet upon further reflection I thought, what if my Merrill is the pretender? I raced to the study and checked the definitive magnolia references. Ah, vindication! The experts agree. No pink in Merrill. Goodwin’s magnolia must have been wrongly labeled. (At pages 181-182, she acknowledges that this happened to another of her magnolias.)

Magnolia x loebneri Merrill was hybridized in 1939 at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, the child of a marriage between M. kobus and M. stellata, and in 1952 was named Merrill in honor of Dr. E.D. Merrill, a former director of the Arboretum. Merrill is part of the hybrid magnolia group loebneri, which originated in Germany with Max Löbner, who made the first kobus/stellata crosses shortly before World War I. Why is the group styled loebneri and not lobneri? I haven”t a clue. But my meaningful-other says the answer is no mystery. The German letter ö with a diacritical mark called an umlaut over it is pronounced ee and is always rendered as oe when German names are spelled out in English texts, unless the translator is sloppy. (Is anyone still there?)

In the year of Merrill’s christening, the Arbotetum’s publication Arnoldia reported that Merrill was covered with beautiful white flowers (Arnoldia, vol. 12, no. 6, 1952) and thereafter that Merrill was “[o]ne of the best and most vigorous of the early white flowering magnolias (Arnoldia, vol. 20, no. 3/4, 1960). Indeed, these observations are entirely consistent with all of the documentation provided me by the Arboretum. Pink is not mentioned in connection with Merrill, not ever. Case closed.

Magnolia x loebneri Merrill has much to recommend it: While I garden in USDA zone 7, Merrill will thrive in zones 5 to 8. Growth is rapid , two feet a year , and my trees are now over 30 feet tall. Despite the energy invested in such vigorous growth, Merrill bloomed abundantly at an early age and reliably every year thereafter. The beautiful, snowy-white flowers have a lovely fragrance which carries on the air. Come Fall, when the lustrous green foliage turns a rich autumnal gold, plump scarlet red fruit attracts an assortment of migrating birds.

Why settle for less?

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A Garden Blog by Lois Sheinfeld

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