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The Coming Of The Magnolia


I know my holiday season is in full swing when the magnolia arrives. The wreaths that are three sizes, the garlands in two sizes-the branches in three sizes. I am in a gardener’s holiday heaven. I know I live and work in the midwest, and ought not to covet the leaves and branches from a tree that grows so far away from me-but I cannot help myself. I have told Buck, should I ever retire, I am moving where I can grow Magnolia Grandiflora. I am sure everything else will work itself out.


There are no end of beautiful magnolias that grow here. I have made it my business to plant them whenever it seems appropriate. The gorgeous bark and tree shape appeals to me the most. The astonishing and fleeting flowers I look forward to every spring. But all of the magnolias that grow here shed their leaves. The evergreen leaves of magnolia grandiflora are beautiful beyond belief. Please remember I am a gardener whose only source of reliably evergreen leaved plants runs to boxwood, and PJM rhododendrons. The big leaved rhodies do not do well here; the azaleas and hellebores are in ruins come spring.


Each leaf of magnolia grandiflora is securely attached to its stem-it takes real effort to peel one off. No matter if the branch is fresh or dry-be prepared for some resistance. The front/sun sides of the leaves are a leatherly, glossy, healthy deep forest green.  The obverse-a felted cinnamon brown to die for.  These transplanted wreaths and garlands brave the vile Michigan winter incredibly well.  That saturated and deep forest green leaf will dry; that deep green color will eventually become a cross between platinum and pale olive.

I buy the wreaths with all green faces, and a mix of the green and felted cinnamon obverse faces-I like both.  Magnolia is a fairly formal material at the holidays, I admit.  It makes for a wreath not one bit like the bits I collect from my garden, and assemble.  I am a dirt gardener-so why do I so like this rock star from out of town?  All my gardenering life I have been reading about and looking at the holiday decorations at Winterthur.  How they express the holiday is a consummate American expression.  I have faded sheets from magazines, books-I learned so much from looking at how they express the holiday.  This wreath, stuffed with every manner of an expression of green-juicy.  Classic.

Last year I had a client with a 14 foot Christmas tree to decorate.  I of course had not planned and shopped for this a year ago; I was on deck, and needed backup.  I took everything I had in boxes in the basement, and added to them; my collection trimmed her tree.  Don’t begin to feel sorry for me.  I was happy to have an opportunity for big change dropped in my lap.  The result-6 tall magnolia branches stuffed into a pot made for our Christmas tree.  No ornament-just some lights at the base.  These magnolia branches-all and everything I could have hoped for.  Buck and I loved our Christmas tree.


Magnolia wreaths can be tough to decorate.  Plan to skewer all of your ornament through the leaves.  No harm done, no kidding. Evergreen stems in a wreath leave gaps where a pick might slide in.  Magnolia arrives sleek, and flat.  Should you be looking for pockets i n which to tuck the treasure of the garden-let that wreath dry for a week.  Those flat leaved wreaths open up, and curl as they dry.

I buy all of my southern magnolia at the holidays from The Magnolia Company.  They do incredibly beautiful work.  They ship fast.  Should you be really far away from me-you can order on line. They farm magnolia branches and leaves-no kidding.  They sell their stock trees on occasion. Their magnolia at the holidays-a renewable resource.

Over the past 10 years or so, I am pleased to say I have placed no small amount of southern magnolia at the holidays.

Visually rich and compelling-yes. The gold metallic sinamay is a beautiful foil for the leaves.  You may find a much less formal wreath treatment just as beautiful.  The big idea here-people make for compelling-not materials.  This magnolia wreath is a mix of front and back views of the leaves.  The brown green and gold color scheme is very pretty with the door.


It may need to wait until December 23rd, but there comes that day when I hang that southern magnolia holiday wreath on my front door.  I will persist with it-until the end of March.  The magnolia enriches my winter.

Posted on: November 30, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Holiday, Woody Plants, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With: , ,

For Adults Only

Some trees delight gardening adults, and gardening adults only.  They do not burst forth dramatically with a blizzard of white blooms in the spring-like a Snowdrift crabapple. There is not a frothy pink blooming ballerina of a crabapple tree in the bunch.  They have no orange and green tulip like flowers on trees closing in on 100 feet tall-as in Liriodendron. 

They have none of the drama of Chamaecyparis Nootkatensis pendula-the weeping Alaskan cedar. None of them are the robustly strong and stately shade trees that ought to be thriving in the tree lawn of every community-the lindens, the sugar and red maples, the zelkovas, the oaks, and sycamores.  They are not a member of the corps of the tree elites-the beeches in all their forms hog most of the room in this category. The Japanese maples consume every spot not taken by the beech. European weeping beech, tri-color beech, Rohani Beech, fernleaf beech-the list is long. The dirt under a mature beech-fit for mulch. No beech suffers any close company in the absence of a feverishly devoted ground-gardener. Acer Palmatum, available in countless permutations-too precious for words. I see them much more than I should.

These architecturally interesting and subtly beautiful trees are not touchy-like the white cercis-and the dogwoods. Any summer day I can see an American dogwood in decline, a Kousa dogwood with wilted foliage and fungus, a birch struggling with borer or ice storm damage, a pin oak with foliage a stark and unpleasant bright yellow from chlorosis.

The adults only trees are never weepers. Weeping trees are hard to respect-admit it. Their tears are relentless. The weeping cherries with their gall-like grafts, the weeping larch, the Camperdown elms-I do not want to come home from work and look at drooping trees-just my preference. So what trees make my adults only list? First and foremost, Parrotia Persica. The Persian Ironwood tree. It grows 20-30 feet tall. It is intimately related taxonomically to the witch hazels. What’s to love here? This small growing multi-branched tree sports subtle witch-hazel like flowers in the spring.   The bark exfoliates as the tree ages. An old Parrotia is a living sculpture with great dignity, and quiet presence. In my garden, it is utterly maintenance-free. Its leaves are disease and insect resistant-my grove of 5 looks great all season long. The fall color varies-but I can count on my Parrotias to hold their leaves really late, and last; most of the leaves hold throughout the winter. Should you be a gardener like me, you tour your garden regularly, and get up close. You give time to seeing it. My parrotias are incredibly beautiful.

On my short list of trees for gardening adults, I have the following criteria. Sculptural branch structure. Great bark. An overall gorgeous shape. Sturdily persistent. Beautiful spring and fall color-this means leaves that make my heart pound. This means the parrotias, the magnolias, the katsuras-and pictured here, the musclewood tree-carpinus caroliniana.  Any tree that makes me think sculpture gets my grown-up attention. 


The leaves are subtly serrated and highly textured; the greenish-yellow fall color persists late into the fall. They branch very low to the ground. They are not showy or dramatic-they are handsome.    


The trunks are indeed muscular. Their winter aspect is every bit as satisfying as the summer.  I have other trees on this short list.  The yellow wood, Cladrastis lutea probably grows the largest.  Maackia Amurensis has glowing green bark, subtle summer flowers, and a beautiful mature shape-very stout, low, and very wide.   

I planted these Lindera glauca var salicifolia quite a few years ago for a client.  Lindera benzoin-the spicebush-is perhaps a better known species. The linderas are shrubs-but they grow large with a minimum of attention.  This species in particular has blue-green willow like leaves.  The texture of the foliage is quite striking.  But it is the fall color- a pale peach-that is a showstopper.  This color persists very long into the fall.  �

The peach will fade to a pale khaki color; the leaves will persist all winter. I took this picture this morning-still peachy November 21. 


I have those days when I am more than willing to be seduced by anything that grows.  In truth, there are probably few trees that I would turn away from my door.  But today, when I tromped around and photographed the parrotias-what fun I had.  Buck asked me what I was doing out there-he could see me from the window.  I told him I was checking out how much my garden, and my gardening, had grown up.

Posted on: November 21, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Woody Plants, Landscape Design Tagged With: , ,

Winter Coats

The coarse woven jute fabric known as burlap is a familiar, essential,  and serviceable material- well known to gardeners. B and B, to the trade, refers to the process of digging, and protecting the integrity of a rootball, so a plant can be successfully transplanted.  A broken rootball can kill a tree.  Sizing a ball properly, and fitting the burlap snug and secure with nursery nails requires a good eye, and some skill.  An expertly burlapped rootball is a handsome thing to behold.  The natural jute will rot over time, freeing the roots in the ball to establish in the surrounding soil.   A burlap fence protect new plants, and  salt-sensitive evergreens; burlap provides enclosure and protection.   

I am in the process of the holiday and winter dressing of the shop.  My landscape crews, under Steve’s direction, have no problem shifting from planting balled and burlapped in the ground to dressing the shop windows with burlap drapes.  The drapery workroom is open for the season.      

The drapes over the shop windows-my crew got every move right. The swags are just so, and securely wired.  We will keep them up all winter, so a weather resistant installation is important.  Burlap drapes do not keep anything warm, but they look warm  I like the idea that my shop is getting its winter coat. The Eupatorium capillifolium in the roof boxes is aptly described by its common name-elegant feather grass.  It was graceful and gorgeous all summer.  I was not prepared for how beautiful and durable the fall color would be; the needle-like foliage shows no signs of dropping. 

Why not try keeping that grass hedge in the boxes all winter?  These small dried magnolia wreath drapery tiebacks repeat that rich cinnamon-brown color in evidence on the roof.   Holiday decor that takes its cue from the garden-this I like.  Every landscape, garden, and garden shed has raw materials that can be transformed into a celebration. 

The lindens on the drive are in the process of having their winter coats fitted.  Wrapping the trunks of trees to prevent injury from the cold is common practice in many gardening cultures.  Tree trunks in Japanese gardens and cities are beautifully wrapped with rice straw matting for the winter.  Cold climate afficianados of cycads hoping to overwinter their plants in the ground will wrap the trunks. The lindens on the drive are getting winter coats of the strictly ornamental kind. 

A fabric reminiscent of moss comprises the first layer; the open weave burlap goes over top.   Each layer is temporarily secured with jute string; the seams are blanket stitched with wire.  The loose ends of the burlap are rolled over and tucked into a wide band of multiple strands of jute twine.    

kFrom the street, the two layers of fabric are neatly secured.  The lindens look warmer already. 


A jute bow will complete the look. Though these tree trunks are unlikely to suffer any sun scald over the winter, they look protected, and dressed for cold weather. 


We swagged a light garland through the canopy of the tree to provide some interest to the display at night.  The bows need adjusting, the drapes need some branches secured on the insides to fluff them out-the finishing details are yet to come. More on that later.

Posted on: November 18, 2010 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Holiday, Woody Plants, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With:

Holiday Diorama

 

I have one room in the shop from which I removed the solid roof, and installed the roof of an abandoned glass house.  Many years later, 15 creeping fig plants have completely covered the walls. In early spring this space provides protection for tender plants.  The summer sun shining down and through the glass roof endows this space with heat.  This hot space encourages the fig, tender begonias, tropical ferns-not to mention all of the gardeners that appreciate this growing space.  A concrete fountain built from an old French design sits on top of the one place we could not remove the concrete floor next to the wall for the fig; an old concrete waste oil tank sits below the surface.  So we built over it; the sound of the water in the space is great. I have water, light and plants in this room, year round.      

When the growing season closes, Rob makes the moves it takes to move on. How can this green wall be transformed?  He invariably has a big idea I do not see coming.  Hundreds of white birch sticks have been stashed in the garage for better than a month-waiting to be transformed into a birch forest holiday diorama.  If you are wondering if we really talk this way-holiday diorama-the answer is yes.  What you give a name to helps to endow an idea with an identity.  Brooklyn Botanical Garden is a name that says science; La Foce speaks to romance and magic.  

Chocolate terra cotta squares-they are Rob’s idea for a home for the birch.  How can we get those heavy branches to sit up straight?   My landscape superintendent Steve Bernard suggested Rob might sink those birch branches in washed sand.  This worked perfectly.  Every birch stick is standing tall; anyone wanting a birch stick for there own holiday will have no problem lifting out the sticks of their choice.  Steve made his contribution to the display early on. 


Rob knew to buy stout white birch poles, silver snowflakes in various materials and sizes, and snowballs.  Putting them together in this particular way involves introuducing the materials to each other, and to a space.  This is a romantic description of what is really about persistence.  He hauls materials all over the place until he sees something that he likes.  So much of successful design involves persistence and patience. 


The relationship of the materials is easy to believe; where there are snowflakes, snow balls cannot be far behind.  A visually successful arrangement is believable.  I do have a neighbor down the street with a life size lighted palm tree in her front yard-this would not be for me.  The contrast of texture, shape, and mass is pleasing. The white against the dark green of the fig wall looks good.

At the last minute, Rob had Catherine add stars to the mix. How this wall looks now could not be more unlike its summer appearance.  The dramatic change is enchanting.  Every person who sees it takes something away from it that is all their own. I had a lengthy discussion with one person about the cultural requirements of Himalayan white barked birch.  Another person planned to use a birch stick as a rod over her kitchen window, and hang ornaments from it like a valance.  Yet another planned to mass snowballs and snowflakes in a white washed vintage box on her front porch.  Our discussion was primarily about how she would light it.   

Of course we needed some lighting; daylight savings time means the dark comes early now.  White and chartreuse light garlands warm up the space on a cold and gloomy afternoon.  A midwestern summer garden can be sunny from dawn to very late in the day.  A winter garden is divided between day and night, and always about not so many sunny days.  A great holiday display takes lighting into consideration. 


Anyone can garden in the winter.  There are plenty of materials that can be arranged in those pots that held tree ferns over the summer. A favorite bench can be lit from the front with a spot light, or from below with strings of lights strewn on the ground.  Decorating a garden with holiday or winter lighting is an alternative type of gardening, but gardening none the less.  There are those gardeners that are relieved when a hard freeze puts an end to the season.  There is something attractive about putting the spade and pruners away for a while, but I like to keep on gardening.

Posted on: November 7, 2010 1 Comment
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Holiday, Woody Plants, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With: , , ,