Good Samaritan

Some things, I’ll never figure out. I hope that I’ve learned a few lessons over twenty-six years gardening this plot, but many mysteries remain. Our native Eastern dogwood (Cornus florida) is an understory tree that will flower a bit even in deep shade, though it blooms heaviest at the forest’s edge with more sunlight. The…

A lovely spring

For four weeks the garden has been superb. After a late start to spring that left at least this gardener muttering aloud, redbuds, dogwoods, and magnolias that typically flower earlier in March all flowered at once. Since, while one flower or another has been a bit tardy, there have been sufficient blooms to allow me…

The native dogwood

Forget this foolishness you read that native plants are hardier, sturdier, or more drought resistant than non-natives. Yes, some are, but others require regular irrigation, or are difficult to maintain in a garden. Some are even aggressive (or invasive), while many non-natives are completely care free and well behaved in the garden. Generalizations about native…

For the birds?

Gardeners, I suppose, are an optimistic lot, sometimes ignoring the obvious for years, or even a lifetime. There is ample evidence that I am a slow learner, with lessons too often requiring a decade or two, if they are ever to be learned.  And, so it is with winter berries, or at least many berries…

Colorful trees for late spring

I cannot explain why ‘Stellar Pink’ (Cornus x ‘Rutgan’) and ‘Satomi’ dogwoods (Cornus kousa ‘Satomi’ below) are barely pink most years in my northwest Virginia garden, but that once in ten years the pink is a deeper, lovelier shade. In fact, these trees have been planted for ten, maybe fifteen years, and only once was…

Dogwoods in autumn

From a distance, the rich crimson foliage of the native dogwood (Cornus florida, below) is quite marvelous in early November. Dogwoods typically turn early, and the foliage persists at least a week or two into November. But, on closer inspection the leaves are curled and spotted, a consequence of high humidity and summer rains in…

The last dogwood blooms

Chinese dogwood (Cornus kousa) is the latest of the dogwoods to flower in my garden. The dogwood season began this year as the native dogwood (Cornus florida) began to bloom the last week of March, two to three weeks earlier than is typical. Hybrid dogwoods introduced by Rutgers University that combine the native American and…

The other dogwoods

The dogwood that is native to the eastern United States (Cornus florida, in bloom below) is a wonderful tree with beautiful large white flowers in early spring (actually white bracts that surround the small, undistinguished flowers), excellent autumn foliage color, and clusters of red berries that persist into early winter when birds pick them clean….

Flowering trees for the native garden

I grow a bit sad when the rosy-pink blooms of redbuds (Cercis canadensis, below) along the highway finally fade and disappear. Left behind is the lush green of the forest’s edge, occasionally punctuated by tangled masses of floriferous, but invasive Japanese honeysuckle. In some years, dogwood’s flowers will persist for a week or two longer…

Trees flowering in late March

The latest of the early spring flowering magnolias in my garden is the pale yellow ‘Elizabeth’ (Magnolia acuminata ‘Elizabeth’, below). A year ago it bloomed exactly in the middle of April, which is perhaps a few days later than average, and why its flowers are rarely bothered by late freezes and frosts as the earlier…