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Trees For Tight Places


Any landscape is predicated on a finite amount of space.  A property could be described by a certain amount of square footage on the ground plane.  A landscape is comprised of lots of different elements, the largest of which would be the sky.  Next up, the trees.   I suppose a small urban property could be forested like woodland, but that assumes  the gardener has only one use in mind for their landscape.  Fortunately, trees come in all sizes and shapes.  A number of trees have a fastigiate, or columnar form.  This means just what the word implies.  The foliage or needles grow naturally in a column.  A tree with a restricted spread is a great choice for small gardens, for gardens that ask for screening, and for gardens asking for natural ornament.  Years ago, this side garden was in full view of a neighboring house.  Today all that remains of that view is a chimney.  The arrangement of pairs of columnar hornbeams have created a natural pergola that is home to a shady seating area.   

My first visit to this property immediately brought the idea of columnar trees to mind.  The back yard is very small, and adjacent properties very close.  The prominent feature of the yard-a beautifully constructed wall.  The soil had been mounded up against the wall, and boxwood had been planted against its base.  In the front of the bed, a collection of perennials. The boxwood and perennials obscured rather than featured the wall,  nor could they possibly provide screening from a neighboring house. The rear yard screen of hemlocks had grown thin, and was very wide at the bottom where no screening was really needed.

These columnar Bowhall maples will eventually completely screen the neighbor’s garage wall from view.  Lowering the grade meant much more of the wall was available to view. The hemlocks were replaced with Thuja Nigra, an arborvitae that grows narrow and tall.  A very small yard is now completely private, given the planting of  fastigiate trees.  The maples only occupy the air space; their pole-like trunks take up no room whatsoever.  The arborvitae are narrow at the bottom as well as the top.  This helps to make a very small space feel spacious. 

This back yard sloped steeply towards the foundation of the house; water in the basement was a problem.  A retaining wall permitted the soil at ground level to be graded away from the house.  The top of the wall was planted with hornbeams  spaced at 12 feet apart; they will grow together faster than you think.  Carpinus fastigiata is naturally broadly egg shaped, but it is quite tolerant of pruning.  The hydrangeas will make the wait for the trees to grow a little more tolerable.  It will be interesting to see what direction the client wants to take with pruning.  They have time to sort that out. The wall also gave the trees a little leg up, screening out the neighboring property.

Arborvitae have a naturally columnar shape, but they also adapt quite well to closer pruning.  This landscape called for a vertical element which would not shade the surrounding plants.  A once yearly pruning is all it needs to keep it in shape.

This landscape features both pruned and unpruned arborvitae.  The pruned cylindrical shapes are very interesting and sculptural.  Pruning any tree or evergreen should be undertaken over time.  It has taken my palabin lilacs on standard 2 years to recover from the shock of my pollarding fit. 

There are those trees that are not particularly columnar by nature, but they are amenable to pruning.  The hybrid magnolia “Ivory Chalice”, a cross between magnolia acuminata, and Magnolia denudata, has been priuned to stay within the confines of this very narrow space along a driveway.  They have been happy here for over 10 years.

Populus tremuloides erecta , or Swedish columnar poplar, is a loosely growing columnar tree that will eventually provide some screening for the giant windows of this contemporary home. The rounded and scalloped leaves flutter in the breeze just like any other popple, and the fall color is great.  This tree may occasionaly have a branch that falls out-a little pruning will put that to right.  Even older trees are not much wider than 5 or 6 feet.

Of course the queen bee of columnar trees has to be the fastigiate European green beech.  Properly cared for, as these are, they make a very strong vertical statement. 

Once these trees reach the roof line of the house, they could be pruned flat.  Age will only improve these fine trees.

Posted on: July 25, 2011 6 Comments
Filed Under: Woody Plants, Landscape Design Tagged With: , , , ,

Lush Life

 

I know that Lush Life is a fabulous shop in Atlanta, Georgia-but it also describes my garden post the second rainiest spring on record since 1880.  Over 14 inches-that is an embarrassment of riches in rain. I can see the effect of that rain every place I look. The Princeton Gold maples have leaves the size of dessert plates; their chartreuse green spring color is all the more intense for all of the rain. 

The European ginger leaves are huge.  It has to be the most beautiful groundcover for shade ever. The glossy rounded leaves grow parallel to the ground plane.  Circle after circle of dark green shiny leaves growing densely just a few inches above the ground.  It is completely happy underneath my steel bench, even though the light must be very low.  I planted a pair of clematis at the rear right side of the bench early this spring.  The very pale lavender and white cultivar-I have forgotten the name.  But I will not soon forget the flower.  The dark purple “The President” will bloom later.  Should someone ask me what romance in the garden means, I would show them this picture.

The new growth on the boxwood is bent over with its lavish spring flush-it will be impossible to trim for at least 2 weeks.  My pollarded Palabin lilacs have roared back with lots of foliage, and a decent bloom.  They should be spectacular next year.  The snakeroots are already over 3 feet tall.  

My rhododendron are in their glory.  They came with the house 15 years ago-they have never looked this good.  The giant flowering trusses are spectacular.  I pruned them considerably last spring after they flowered.  I am pleased to report I have at least 2 breaks every place I pruned.  Night temperatures in the low 50’s, and daytime temps in the low seventies will extend the bloom time considerably. My magnolias and dogwoods flowers blew away with two days of 90 degree days and high winds.  I am hoping for a good many days with my rhodies. My yews are flushing so fast and so much they are chartreuse green to my eye.  This is a different look than the one to which I am accustomed.  That new growth phase on evergreens is so beautiful.  This spring greening is lush beyond all belief.

May I talk a little about my roses?  I do not have a big collection, just a concentrated collection.  Carefree Beauty, Carefree Wonder, Sally Holmes, Jeannie LeJoie, and Eden-these are my girls.  Two Carefree Griffith Buck shrub roses, one old English bred shrub rose/climber Sally Holmes, and two climbers.  The dwarf Jeannie LeJoie is a great foil for that heavy headed very girly climbing rose-Eden.  They are so loaded with buds right now I think I should be planning a party.

The foliage is lustrous and unmarked by fungus or bugs.  There is not an aphid in sight.  Every day after work Buck and I go up there to check on the progress.  The dwarf Jeannie LeJoie is always the first to show color.  I so highly recommend this rose, if you are partial to roses, but not necessarily a rosarian.  These climbers grow vigorously, and reward with thousands of little pink double flowers.

My Jeannies can be devastated by aphids and fungus, but never enough to challenge the life of the plants.  Truth be told, I never spray anything, except rabbit repellant.  The rabbits exasperate me-I am happy to shoo them off. Otherwise, I live with the holes in the leaves.  Fungus however can be debilitating to a collection of roses-I will intervene, should I think I need to.

But this moment all that is on my mind is the giant leg up all of the rain have bequeathed to my roses.  Every one of them is 5 feet tall or better.  Pam gave them a thorough and thoughtful pruning this spring.  Thousands of buds-this is what the rain provided. 

 This is the first flower from my climbing rose Eden.  They have so many petals their heads hang from the branches.  This bloom got set on the dinner table flating in a glass of water. I read the garden blog written by Paul Gervais regularly; his post on his roses, including the so fabulous Eden, is delightful.  http://gervaisdebedee.blogspot.com/2011/05/few-roses.html

Other plants have not so loved all of the rain.  The herniaria around the fountain looks pale green.  I have dead patches.  Too much rain.  At the shop, we moved all of the succulents into the greenhouse; I was fearful of rot. The alyssum has suffered much.  Many flats we simply threw away.   Too much rain ruined many of them; the high winds further burned them.  The high winds damaged a lot of plants.  The calla lilies have wind whipped leaves.  Some topiary plants were blown over multiple times; we were treating a good many broken arms a few days ago.   Cases of heliotrope were dessicated by the winds-those irreparably burned plants we threw in the trash.  The nicotiana are listing in a windward way in their pots.  I am not posting any pictures of that mess.

Every season has its lingering triumphs, and its shockingly stinging disappointments. Does this not sound similar your gardening life?  My professional gardening life is incredibly busy right now. I have barely posted this week; most all of my waking hours are about designing, getting plants delivered, and being out there, planting.  The saving grace of the rain?  When I go home, I see a garden growing vigorously-even though I am not there so much to help out.

Posted on: June 4, 2011 3 Comments
Filed Under: Woody Plants, Garden Design, The Natural World Tagged With: , , ,

Magnolia Butterflies

Though I have written about Butterflies Magnolia before, I cannot ignore the best bloom ever going on right now.  Please bear with me.  This magnolia was bred by Phil Savage, a native of my area.  His work hybridizing magnolias is known internationally.  Al Goldner, a landscape designer for whom I worked in the 1980’s, took me to his property to meet him, and see his work.  I planted these trees 8 years ago, and surrounded them with formal rectangles of boxwood.  They were breathtaking when I got home last night.

The duration of time any magnolia blooms is very short, but I would not miss it.  The flowers are so spectacular, the week or better I get every year is worth the wait, and the regret at the end.   But magnolias also have beautiful smooth grey bark, and very architectural branching.  The large glossy leaves are beautiful the entire season long.  There are a lot of good reasons to plant them.   This particular cultivar is trouble free for me-all I do is look at them.

The individual flowers of Butterflies has the classic magnolia shape and petal count.  The flowers are small, but so so lovely.  It is the pale yellow flower of Butterflies which is so startlingly different than most magnolias.  Though Phil Savage passed away a few years ago, his property still exists, intact.  I have seen peach flowered magnolias grafted onto ash tree rootstock-60 feet tall there.  His niece, Patty Y,  is a client of mine; she took me there last year to see all of his magnolias in bloom.  Were it my call, his property would immediately be declared a national treasure and cared for in perpetuity.  There are trees on that property that exist no where else on earth.  The no where else on earth idea is an important one.  This is an idea which guides my garden making.  I want a garden that is just mine; when I get home, I know there is no other place like it on earth.     

As I said, these trees have been in the ground for eight years.  Though our spring has been miserably cold and nasty, they started blooming yesterday as if they had 10 minutes to live.  I have never had so many flowers.  There are thousands of yellow flowers.  Buck and I had a glass of wine out there last night-heavenly. 

By heavenly, I mean this.  I live in an urban neighborhood-a major 5 lane road just one block away.  Last night, these trees transported me to another place and time.  If you are a gardener, you understand how a beautiful moment in a garden is the next best thing to heaven.  Though I planted these magnolias as single trunked trees, they are also grown in my area as multitrunked shrubby trees.  Imagine a hedge of yellow magnolias, can you? Will you? 


My Butterflies-a highlight of my gardening year.

Posted on: May 11, 2011 9 Comments
Filed Under: Woody Plants Tagged With: , ,

Placing Trees

Some time ago I voiced the opinion that I was not a big fan of Japanese maples.  I heard back about that in spades. So yes, I will concede that they are beautiful trees with enchanting habit and great bark and leaf color.  But they can be very tough to place beautifully in a landscape.  The red leaved varieties are striking in appearance.  The flip side of striking?  Visually demanding.  A specimen tree is just this-a stand alone special element around which an entire space may be organized.   

A beautiful specimen tree asks for a placement that reinforces this idea.  If the idea is to feature a particular plant, other elements in the landscape need to take a supporting role.  Of course landscapes can be organized around a series of spaces or rooms, each with their own diva.  In my own landscape, my trees are either hedged, or planted in drifts, as the divas of my landscape are ornaments.  A fountain pool and groups of pots are focal points.  This is by no means the best way to design a landscape.  This is merely what I like.     

This front yard landscape was home to 9 Japanese maples, representing 5 different cultivars.  When I first saw it last October, some of the maples had black-red leaves.  Some had brown-red leaves.  Others were more clearly red.  In addition, there was a lovely sugar maple, showing yellow fall color in this picture, and 5 additional shade trees.  This made for 15 trees total in the front yard.  Some trees were in poor condition.     

Landscapes in urban neighborhoods are tough to design. They require a judicious hand, and a willingness to edit.  Every landscape gesture needs to be informed by that scarcity of space.  A landscape also needs to work in close concert with that dominant element-the home.  A landscape that respects the architecture will read coherently. There are many voices here struggling to be heard.

Of course it is easier to see years later how a placement of trees might be wanting.  Hindsight is 20-20.  Imagining the space a tree will occupy at maturity is an art; the best practioner I knew is this regard was Al Goldner.  He fearlessly placed trees in anticipation of what they might become 20 years later-even if the landscape looked too sparse and almost undone to begin with.     

Trees planted very close to the foundation of the house may be lovely the day they go in.  Years later, they can obstruct any view of the architecture they meant originally to celebrate.  It is equally as important to consider the views out from within as it is those views from the street.  Several rooms inside are dark, as the windows are covered by branches of the trees.  These branches are equally obstructing the views out into the landscape.  

Every landscape has a foreground, a mid ground, and a background space.  Those spaces need to work, no matter the angle of the view.  The Japanese maples might have presented a completely different appearance, had they been pruned differently.  Each had foliage to the ground.  They read visually as giant red shrubs, not small trees with interesting branching, and an airy appearance.  Maintenance is a very important part of a landscape.

Once the trees were gone, other elements emerged.  A pair of hollies on either side of the front door grew at different rates, and generally suffered from trees planted over them. The boxwood had declined as well.  They have damage from leaf miners; perhaps they were pruned too late in the fall.  There is some work ahead restoring them to good health.   


The beautiful sugar maple, and the hemlocks flanking each end of the house are appropriate and friendly to the architecture.  We moved a lot of plants yesterday.  Viburnums, azaleas, hollies, oak leaf hydrangeas, limelight hydrangeas, boxwood and fothergilla.  The renovation of this landscape is underway.

Posted on: April 20, 2011 14 Comments
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Woody Plants Tagged With: , ,