More about Japanese maples

The Golden Full Moon maple (Acer shirasawanum ‘Aureum’, below) leafs several weeks after the garden’s other Japanese maples. It’s in nearly full sun, which is not it’s preferred location since the yellow foliage is prone to sunburning (though this has not been a problem for me). But, this should speed leafing in the spring, not delay it. I suppose that it’s the nature of the beast, and it’s not a problem, but it creates a bit of concern when other maples are full and lush and there’s barely a bud showing on the Golden Full Moon maple. Even when it begins to break into leaf, there’s a leaf here and there, and it takes a few weeks for it to fill out. Today, it’s about three quarters full, but it’s progressing nicely.

This is a tree that I lusted after for years, and was even tempted to purchase a small sapling through mail order since I could not find a larger one. The Full Moon maple is slow, and I’m an impatient gardener, so fortunately I stumbled over a tree in a Japanese maple grower’s field in Aurora, Oregon that had been left behind due to damage to its trunk. The injury proved to be superficial, and I’m overjoyed to include this treasure in my little collection of Japanese maples.

Most of the maples in the garden are not unique or rare, and several are downright common, but rare or commonplace matters little to me. A few of the Japanese maples have been here for more than twenty years, and others only for a year or two (and one for only a few months). As the garden has filled to capacity in recent years my selections have turned to ones that stay relatively small, and I’m always anxious to add another.

A simple fact is that red leafed types will be most popular in garden centers, and that red leafed varieties with pendulous branching will be most requested. I’ve planted red leafed upright and weeping varieties, but also ones with green, yellow, and variegated foliage. I don’t think that there are any foliage types that I don’t have at least one of, though my collection of twenty three varieties is only a small fraction of the twenty five thousand named varieties.

The most recent Japanese maple I planted was the green and white variegated ‘Butterfly’ (Acer palmatum ‘Butterfly’, above). There is another on the shaded south side of the house, and while most maples perform best in full sun, ‘Butterfly’ has done quite well with little sunlight. I planted the new maple at tip of a curved point in the large koi pond (which was previously referred to as the swimming pond, but my wife informs me that I should not swim/float in it any longer with so many fish). A Japanese maple that was planted a year ago was removed, which was a shame since I planted it believing it was the variegated ‘Floating Cloud’ maple (Acer palmatum ‘Ukigumo’, below). As it turned out, the tree was mislabeled, leafing out a sad looking green and proving to be the single most unremarkable Japanese maple I’d ever seen.

This was a horrible disappointment since I have seen too many ‘Ukigumo’ maples going to waste with the vast oversupply of Japanese maples the past several years in Oregon, and it seemed such a simple thing to have one of my own. Alas, it was not meant to be, and I’ve moved on, though if the opportunity to get a genuine ‘Floating Cloud’ comes around I’ll certainly find a spot for it. In any case, the green leafed maple was dug out and ‘Butterfly’ was planted in its place, where it is a slightly better choice since it is a bit more tolerant of one of the few full sun spaces remaining in the garden.

Late spring is the prime season for Japanese maples in the warm and humid mid Atlantic region (or upper south, whichever you prefer). By mid summer many maples in full sun begin to show a bit of stress, and some red leafed varieties begin to fade. They are still healthy, but the maples are much happier in cooler temperatures, and in May and June their foliage color is most vivid.

In May the foliage of ‘Gwen’s Rose Delight’ (Acer palmatum ‘Gwen’s Rose Delight’, trade name ‘Shirazz’, above) is purple with a pronounced pink edge, a striking combination that attracts the immediate attention of visitors. Unfortunately, by August the foliage has faded to a bedraggled red-green, and the pink edge is only a memory, but for a few months in the spring there is no Japanese maple so delightful. For this reason, ‘Gwen’s Rose Delight’ should probably not be the only maple in your garden, but in this garden it is one of many, so I can simply avert my gaze when it’s not at its prime.

The well maintained garden?

No, I’m sorry. Perhaps you’ve mistaken my garden for another. Mine is not well maintained at all, but barely managed. Still, there’s a time in May when all seems right about the garden. I’ll claim that it’s only for a day, but it’s longer, not a month, but perhaps two weeks when the garden looks just the way the gardener envisions it on a snowy January afternoon.

The lawn, never a priority to me, is lush and green, and mostly without weeds. Trees and shrubs are growing vigorously, and with perennials and bulbs planted thickly between there is little light or space for weeds. There are flowers at every turn, and foliage in vibrant greens, yellow, and red.

Considerable effort was required earlier in the spring to reach this point, and now for a few moments there is time to enjoy. In fact, by early May most of my labor to maintain the garden is complete, and with a low standard of neatness I’m satisfied to barely manage the garden through the remainder of the year. It’s possible during this two week period that a visitor might be fooled into believing that this is a well maintained garden, but a discerning eye will realize that the abundant foliage conceals an underlying wildness. It’s not quite a look that the gardener has given up and walked away, but compromises have been made. And, I’m not bothered by this at all.

This is not a manicured garden, to say the least. One tall boxwood is sheared into a cone, and this only because it was growing too wide across a path and the wife threatened taking matters into her own hands to keep the flagstone walk passable. She is aware that this flips a switch for me, and as soon as she picks up her pruners I spring into action.  No other pruning is done except to cut out a stray dead branch, and occasionally to clip a branch that encroaches too far into a neighbor.

In fact, I’m disturbed when neighbors do not encroach into another’s space. Certainly, there are limits when one plant is too close to another, and one or the other is injured by the proximity. But, I prefer less defined lines between neighboring plants, so that one branch flops over another, and the wildness is barely controlled (or not).

This is not my wife’s preference. I think she would prefer a larger lawn, and a smaller garden. Paths should be wide, with stones that are stable and not obscured by wide spreading hostas and Forest grasses. Edges of planting beds should be sharply defined, and plants pruned in an orderly fashion (though not sheared into a series of balls. On this we agree.). Debris should be raked, swept, and discarded, and not left to decay.

Oh well, most of  us learn early in life that not everything will go our way. Occasionally, there will be piles of debris, and some might linger from one year into another. In late spring the stone paths will be partially obscured by overhanging foliage, and beware what lurks beneath, so it’s best to move along quickly.

Mostly (and by mostly I mean completely), this garden is for me, and if anyone (with the minor exception of my wife) has other ideas, I’m sorry. There is certain to plenty in this garden to annoy dedicated gardeners, and if you must have order it’s probably best if you don’t drop by to visit. Plants are too close, the design is cluttered without a unifying theme, and heaven knows what else, but the garden is exactly how I prefer it, well maintained or not.

Big blooms, small flowers

There is  no larger shrub in the garden, and certainly no larger blooms than on the Chinese Snowball bush (Viburnum macrocephalum ‘Sterile’, below). In fact, the huge blooms are composed of many smaller flowers, much like mophead hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla), but Chinese Snowball is considerably taller and wider than the largest of the mopheads.

This tall, wide shrub has been a problem for me for the past several years. I’ve no quarrel with the viburnum, which is quite wonderful in flower and pleasant enough after bloom, but it’s a considerable nuisance to my wife, and of course the trouble is passed along to me. The bother is that the shrub has grown to block most of the light from our library windows, and annually I’m assigned the task of cutting it down to size.

Each year I promise (with a hedge, as is my usual manner) to prune the viburnum after flowering. It would be much simpler to prune while it’s dormant, but I argue that would cut off the many hundreds of blooms, and that would be such a waste. I should wait until after flowering, but the spring comes and goes and there’s so much to be done, and of course time must be set aside to appreciate the garden, so that the pruning doesn’t happen, again. I figure that much the same will occur this year, and so the library will remain dark. (It has lights, for Heaven’s sake, so I don’t know what all the fuss is about.)

Chinese Snowball does benefit from annual pruning after flowering or it grows with a bit too much of an open form, and though I don’t recall I suppose that I could have done this years earlier when it was a much smaller shrub. Now, it’s far too tall to reach the uppermost branches, so pruning to shape is out of the question, and only with a tall step ladder and an open afternoon would there be any way to cut it back to a reasonable size. As long as my wife doesn’t learn to use the chainsaw I’m safe, the Chinese Snowball will be allowed to roam far and wide, and I’ll take my tongue lashing without complaint.

The garden’s other large viburnum, the doublefile ‘Shasta’ (Viburnum  plicatum tomentosum ‘Shasta’, above) takes nearly as much space, though it is not nearly as tall. Fortunately, it’s not blocking any part of the house since it’s planted out into the garden at the forest’s edge. Actually, the forest and a large serviceberry have grown so that ‘Shasta’ is now an understory shrub. In this shaded setting it doesn’t flower as heavily as long ago when it enjoyed at least a half day’s sun, but in early May most of its branches are cloaked in white blooms.

Looking down from the kitchen windows the snow white blooms of ‘Shasta’ are seen peeking out from behind the serviceberry, but walking through the garden you must walk around through the forest, or push aside branches of too many shrubs to get to it. From the stone path twenty feet away, ‘Shasta’ is barely evident, which is shameful design to hide such a beauty, and I’ll take full blame. In a sunny spot the foliage of ‘Shasta’ turns to plum-purple in autumn, but with too much shade under tall swamp maples the color is lost.

Both viburnums require substantial space, and I laugh when I hear people suggest that they will keep a shrub or tree “pruned back”. Perhaps long in the past I fooled myself to think I would dependably keep after pruning something, but it’s just not going to happen, so plan on the space from the start. If there’s room enough for one of these delightful viburnums, the large flowers are certain to please.

Finding space for trees

There’s no disguising that I’m a sucker for any distinctive tree, common or rare, and regardless if there’s space to plant it, or not. Last year I purchased tiny saplings of Dove tree (Davidia involucrata, below) and Korean Sweetheart tree (Euscaphis japonica) since there was no space in the garden to plant full sized trees. I just had to have them, so the two foot tall trees are planted in decorative containers, where they’ll grow sitting on one of the patios until I figure out where they’ll fit in. These will eventually grow only  to be small trees, so it will be relatively easy to find a spot for them (I suppose). If this summer is a repeat of last, thunderstorms will make room without any effort on my part.

There are more dogwoods, redbuds, and lots of Japanese maples (Acer palmatum ‘Scolopendrifolium’, below) that I lust after, but at some point there is just no space and the most idiotic gardener must call it quits. While it might not be too big a challenge to shoehorn the Dove and Sweetheart trees in, planting five or six others in pots would cross the line, even for me. I might be stupid, but I’m not crazy, or is it the other way around?

So, there is no room for more trees. And then, a summer storm pops up with extraordinary winds for only ten minutes, and the fifteen feet tall and wide Seven Son Tree (Heptacodium miconiodes, below) is snapped off below the soil line. After weeks of waiting, to my surprise, there is not a a single sucker that grows back from the roots, so here is an open space, a wide open space.

I argue back and forth for weeks, what to plant? A wide spreading purple Catawba crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemia indica ‘Catawba’) will best fill the space, but do I lust after it? No. Years ago I planted ‘Catawba’ just off the back corner of the house, when that spot was still in nearly full sun. This crapemyrtle spreads gracefully, and the dark purple blooms are nothing short of magnificent. But, it suffered annually with aphids.

It sounds so easy when it’s recommended to blast aphids off foliage with a concentrated spray of water, but the reality is far more difficult, and I could not be rid of these tiny, leaf sucking beasts. And, one spring, ‘Catawba’ didn’t leaf out. Oh well, sooner than later it would have been too close to the house and the low branches would have obstructed the flagstone walk to the back deck.

So, if not the crapemyrtle, what? Finally, the argument was decided in favor of the Red Horsechestnut (Aesculus x carnea, flowering above), a medium growing tree that is not quite a small flowering tree and not nearly a tall and wide growing shade tree. It’s somewhere between, eventually a bit too large for this spot, but that will be long after I’m dead and gone in all likelihood. 

Red horsechestnut is a hybrid of the tall growing, common horsechestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) and the shrubby Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia, above), and for the next twenty years it will work quite well in this spot. After that, maybe not so much, but lots can change in that time, so I’ll worry about it later, much later. Today, both the red buckeye and red horsechestnut are flowering, and the question is, how could I have waited so long to plant this delightful tree? The answer is obvious to anyone who has seen the garden, but not so clear to me, it seems.

The next question is for you, dear reader. Someone out there has space enough to plant a medium sized tree with agreeable, dark green corrugated foliage and beautiful, red spring blooms. What better tree could you select than red horsechestnut?  

Perhaps you have no space for a thirty foot tall tree. How about the red buckeye or the slightly less beautiful, native Bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora, above)? Both require the space that a large viburnum will require, or even a forsythia, and buckeye will grow in sun or shade, dry soil or nearly standing water. I suggest skipping the difficult decisions to choose between these wonderful shrubs, and plant one of each (at least, though I’ll have no argument if you skip the forsythia).

The spring garden

I’ve planted to fill the garden with blooms throughout the year, and with recent mild winters there has been something flowering every day for the past two years. Still, skillful planning would be required not to have a garden full of blooms in the spring months (and what would be the point). Again, there are many more flowers than I can include in my weekly updates. So, here are photos from the past week, and probably a few from the week before that I must pass along before they have faded in the garden.

First, this has been a magnificent month for both redbuds and dogwoods. Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) began to flower a week into April, and I was afraid the blooms would be short lived since this coincided with ninety degree temperatures. But, the warm weather moved on and the past three weeks have been cool, so the redbuds have only recently faded. The hot days pushed the dogwoods (Cornus florida) into flower a few days after the redbuds, nearly the average time for their blooms in my garden.

In previous updates I mentioned that the showy white flowers of the dogwood are not, in fact flowers, but bracts. In the photo (above) the yellow flowers are evident at the center of the large white bracts. This is only of minor interest, and certainly it should never be mentioned except as a trivial aside when someone is technically incorrect in stating that their dogwood is flowering when it is only the bracts. I make no distinction, and consider the bracts to be part of the flowering body, so the dogwoods have been flowering since the second week of April. Usually, they have faded by the start of May, but not this year.

Once the true flowers open the bees visit to sample the nectar, and the pollination rewards us with bunches of red berries in autumn. The fruiting body of spruce is the cone, and ‘Acrocona’ spruce (Picea abies ‘Acrocona’, above) has the interesting habit of forming its cones at its branch tips. In late April and early May the cones are soft and pink, then they harden and turn to brown trough the summer as the seed matures.

It would be foolish to say that the cones are as ornamental as any flower, since there are few cones and many flowers, but the sprawling ‘Acrocona’ spruce is as beautiful as any of the garden’s evergreens for several weeks. Eventually, ‘Acrocona’ will form a mound taller than ten feet, and probably a bit wider, but in six or seven years it has barely reached knee high.

Weeks ago I featured the splendid variegated Winter daphne (Daphne odora ‘Aureo-marginata’), and commented on the lacking of my sense of smell. Most often the fragrance of the spring blooming ‘Carol Mackie’ daphne (Daphne burkwoodi ‘Carol Mackie’, above) is more obvious to me, but with cool temperatures (or something, I can’t explain) the scent has barely been noticeable this spring. In any case, the flowers are delightful, and even when it is past bloom the variegated foliage is splendid. ‘Carol Mackie’ flowers more heavily and the foliage is superior to the winter daphnes, but that is only reason to grow both so that the garden has highly fragrant blooms for parts of February, March, April, and May.

Jack in the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum, above) is flowering in the garden. The green and white flowers of this native woodland perennial are not showy, but I eagerly awaited its arrival earlier in the month. Ones I’ve planted in the past did not survive soil that was too damp, but now several plants seem to have established nicely in soil that is only slightly damp.

Spreading under difficult circumstances

A strip of forest runs along the southern border of the garden with tall swamp maples and tulip poplars, but also a wonderful black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) and a sprinkling of oaks to the lower end. The area between the house and the forest is narrow enough at its closest point that I fear one day a towering maple will come crashing through the corner bedroom in a storm. The son who occupied this bedroom long ago moved out on his own, but beware if you’re invited for an overnight stay and thunderstorms are forecast.

Nearest the house the soil is deep, with adequate moisture and shade so that hostas sprout monstrous leaves and azaleas grow with exceptional vigor. But, nearer the forest the shade is deeper, and the soil is thin, choked with thirsty roots from the maples. In this difficult circumstance Robb’s spurge (Euphorbia robbiae, below) flourishes. It has managed to spread where I can barely carve out a hole for the smallest of plants. I suppose that in looser soil its spread might be deemed too vigorous, but here its roaming habit is greatly appreciated.

And, Robb’s spurge plays nice with others. It’s a vigorous spreader, but not aggressive. It doesn’t ramble over and through its neighbors, but gently surrounds them. A yellow epimedium  and gold leafed hosta have been engulfed for several years in the midst of the spreading spurge, but if I was properly motivated I could go out and dig them up without any trouble.

By late winter the evergreen foliage of Robb’s spurge has begun to fade, but then the vibrant chartreuse flowers emerge on tall stems and a sad looking plant suddenly jumps to life. My only hesitation in recommending Robb’s spurge is that it could prove to be too rambunctious in good garden soil, and its eighteen inch height might not be appropriate for some situations. But, I’d bet that there’s no tougher plant. It’s dependably resistant to deer, and it thrives where good sense tells you a plant shouldn’t even survive.

Years ago, I surmised that with the success of Robb’s spurge, all euphorbias would be comparably indestructible, but I’ve been disappointed with red and variegated leafed spurges in sun and shade. The red leafed ‘Chameleon’ (Euphorbia dulcis ‘Chameleon’, above) comes and goes annually, sprouting from seed, but fading due to mildew (I suppose) by late summer. I was excited by it for a few years, but it has proven to be less than stellar. ‘Bonfire’ (Euphorbia polychroma ‘Bonfire’, below) was introduced with the promise that it would be more vigorous and dependable, and indeed it survived through summer without a sweat, only to fail through the first winter. I suspect that it didn’t like the persistent dampness, and there was no sign of it by spring. It will not be invited back for a second trial. 

A few unremarkable spurges have settled in without distinction, but only Robb’s and threadleaf spurge (Euphorbia cyparissias, below) have had notable long term success. I read that many gardeners find this spurge too vigorous (they say invasive), but it grows with short stems so that it will not crawl up or over larger shrubs in its path. Threadleaf spurge has a wonderful texture, and the blooms are every bit as bright as Robb’s for weeks in the spring. 

In my garden threadleaf spurge grows alongside a stone patio that borders the large swimming pond, and occasionally it creeps into the gaps between stones. In other parts of the garden moss, creeping Jenny, and bluestar creeper fill gaps between patio and path stones, but threadleaf spurge is just a bit too tall to work here. So, it is easily plucked out, and there’s never a spot where it’s a problem.  

The spurges are not the only tough as nails spreaders in this garden. Delicate looking, but rough and tumble Ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris, above) started from transplants I dug out of damp shade where a small spring begins at the forest’s edge. In the wettest parts are skunk cabbages, and on slightly drier ground mayapples and a sturdy clump of Ostrich ferns.

I realized that the space I was transplanting the ferns into was considerably drier, and at midday the sun exposure might be too direct, but the price was right. To my delight, the Ostrich ferns have spread robustly, nixing any plans I could have made to plant a bit more color in this area by the driveway (above). In fact, I prefer the lushness of the ferns, until the Japanese beetles and late summer sun give them some trouble. 

The tall Ostrich ferns spread to cover any area of open ground, and even under the thickly leafed canopy of a wide spreading Japanese maple the fern flourishes. I will often find ferns popping through cracks several feet into the driveway. When strays pop up in the center of the bluestone patio they are readily cut out, and often I’ll transplant these to other dry, shady spots in the garden. Here is a spreader that prefers dampness, but grows without complaint in dry shade.

Silverbells

Carolina Silverbell (Halesia caroliniana, below) is native to much of the American southeast, though not to Virginia, so it can not correctly be called a native in my garden. No matter, I have trees from across the globe, and none lovelier in bloom than the silverbell. Unfortunately, the dangling blooms have a tissue papery substance, so typically they last for only a short period in the inordinately cold or warm days that are the standard in April. Happily, in this cool, but not cold April the flowers have persisted a week longer, with excellent prospects for at least several more days.

The habitat of Carolina silverbell is similar to that of the native dogwood, and in my garden silverbell flourishes at the wood’s edge growing in the shade of towering swamp maples. In this mostly shaded setting its growth is slightly more upright, and branching less dense than is typical. But, in recent years the lower branches of the thirty foot tall tree have thickened, and flowering is much more evident nearer the ground. Like many flowering trees, Carolina silverbell is unobtrusive through much of the year, but glorious for ten days in April. Given the difficult, root filled soil where it’s planted, I imagine that silverbell is a tough, hardy choice, so long as there is space in the garden for a tree that climbs to forty feet or more.

Finding a Carolina silverbell in a garden center is another matter. There is no economic incentive for tree growers or garden centers to invest a few years growing lesser known trees without a market to sell them, and of course it is shame that fine trees are neglected. When I find such treasures I don’t hesitate to pluck one to add to the garden, and with a tree with such accommodating cultural requirements there is no reason (even in a garden that is fully planted) not to add one.

Growing (and flowering) nearby at the forest’s edge is the equally obliging fothergilla (Fothergilla gardenii, above), a witch hazel relative with pleasant blue-green foliage similar to Vernal witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis).  It is fairly common in garden centers, but scarce in gardens.  This southeastern native grows with an open habit when planted as an understory shrub, though it will branch more densely with more sun. Its native habitat is swampy areas, but it seems to grow without a bother in dry shade as well. It has no pest problems, including deer, and I never give it a thought except to enjoy the April bottlebrush blooms and the lush blue green foliage. In autumn the foliage turns a lovely yellow to soft orange  to scarlet (below), and certainly there are few shrubs that compare.

For years there was only one fothergilla in the garden, planted on the outside edge of the property so that the neighbor could enjoy it, but in a spot that I don’t visit regularly. There are years when this has caused me to miss its blooms, or autumn foliage, when I was occupied by so many other treats. So, I’ve rectified this by a adding two smaller shrubs on the far side of the garden in the area where brush and brambles were cleared out in early winter. This area is a bit under done at the moment, which is quite a switch for me, but I’ve no doubt that everything will grow together in a few short years. There is nothing that will please this gardener more than seeing tall branches of the fothergilla arching for sunlight from beneath the Bigleaf magnolia and catalpa. Here, I’ll be certain not to miss these marvelous blooms.