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White Trees

 

Some years ago I landscaped a gated community in our area.  I put all my visual bets on groves of scotch pine, and Himalayan white-barked birch.  Pinus Sylvestris and Betula Jacquemontii-sounds like an engagement announcement to me.  Both trees like sun, and perfectly drained soil.  The birch likes cool moist soil; a placement in a lawn panel that gets regular water.  The Scotch pine-placed ever so slightly out of range of the overhead irrigation-in drier locations.

Both species are doing just fine, but no doubt the Himalayan is the looker of the pair.  The whitest barked of all the birch, that white bark is evident at a very early age-unlike other species that have to grow up into the white. The striking color of this bark puts it on my dance card of white trees I  like to waltz around with.  Very susceptible to the bronze birch borer, they need care-just like everything else that is so worth the trouble.  

White flowering trees make the spring landscape spectacular.  The magnolias first up, the apples, the Bradford pears, the crabapples-the list of white spring flowering trees is considerable.  They bloom before they have foliage.  Take a minute to think about that phenomena.  Asleep all winter, they burst forth with their show like they have 10 minutes to live. This year the blooming was especially heavy.  I am not a big fan of Bradford pears, but my favorite thing about them is when their topmost branches start to green up, while the rest of the tree is still in bloom.  A gorgeous spring phase.

My dogwoods are coming on strong now. Cornus Florida-when they are good, they are excellent, and when they are bad, they are horrid.  I have one tree in the grove with 2 flowers-go figure.  They fade from fungus over the summer. They perpetually look wilted, and unhappy.  But today, I have no complaints.  The flowers keep me coming back for more. 

I have a particular interest in single flowers, for whatever reason.  Bloodroot, white hellebores, dogwood, white annual phlox, white pansies, daisies, Peony Krinkled White, white poppies, Nicotiana alata, Japanese anemones-you get the idea.  White single flowers are especially beautiful.  So simple, elegant, and satisfying to the eye.


The Venus dogwood is no doubt the most spectacular white flowering tree on the planet.  A cross between the Pacific dogwood, Cornus Nuttalli, and Cornus Kousa, it has the great characteristics of each, in addition to great hardiness, a fast growth rate, and the most spectacular white flowers I have ever seen.  The trees at the shop were in bloom a full month last year, start to finish.


The foliage is large and lush.  They do not fruit to speak of, which doesn’t turn me away from them much.  I like that I can place them in full sun in my zone, and see them thrive.  You can see the size of the trunk in this picture; even an immature tree puts on quite a show.

I typically buy them as 1″ or 1.5″ caliper trees in 25 gallon pots.  This makes it easier for a home gardener to plant them-although  those pots are terrifically heavy.  Even at this early age, each tree will sport upwards of 300 flowers.  Though magnolias can be every bit as willing to bloom, they are fussy about weather conditions.  In a warm year, they may drop their flowers in an instant.

The willingness to grow vigorously and bloom heavily for a long time makes “Venus” my favorite white tree. The trees at the shop are small, and quite green right now; they have inherited that later bloom characteristic from the Kousa parentage.  If you like dogwoods, a Venus will greatly extend the spring bloom season beyond Cornus Florida time. The Venus season is just about to begin.


This was my red white and blue view the other day.

Posted on: May 7, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Woody Plants Tagged With: , , ,

A Level Playing Field

 


I have skimmed over many gardening articles in the past few years advocating the abolition of lawn in the landscape.  In general, I do not favor the act of banning.  Those who would ban this or that somehow have the idea that the lives of others are just waiting for them to intervene and save them.  Thanks very much, but I have done a fairly good job up until now making my own decisions about how to live my life.  That aside, I think lawn has an important place in the landscape.

Perhaps I should distinguish between lawn, and grass.  I do not have lawn-as were rolled, tended and cut every other day in those classical English gardens that make my mouth water.  I have grass-that low and densely growing perennial that covers considerable and any amount of square footage without any maintenance- save a weekly cutting. Grass grows willingly.  It grows on slopes as well as flat ground.  Grass covers bare soil, and vigorously resists invasion from weeds. Beautifully graded soil, covered in grass-a sculpture. 

Grass is all about endurance.  Grass endures the impromptu soccer game, the garden party, the dog play, the car tires, the wheelbarrow grooves,-grass sits on the ground, enduring a lot of  physical activity in a garden-with few complaints.  It has to be the most versatile and accomodating plant on my planet.  That green skin of grass covers a fair amount of my property, to good end.  It enables me to get from one place to another. When of a mind to goof off, I might lie down on it. It enables me to be in the garden.

My corgis have legs barely 8 inches tall.  They are not so crazy about gravel or concrete-they like grass under their feet.  Their favorite time of the day-home, with the grass underfoot.  A level playing field for their horseplay is essential to their play.  The job of a retail dog has its demands.  They are happy to get home, cut loose, and relax.  The lawn is a place the four of us can relax and enjoy the garden.   

Were you be here, you would understand. When I come home, I want an outdoor place to be and sit-this means a patch of grass. I will admit I have one client with no grass-save for a patch big enough for him to take a nap. You may think this funny-I think he has a very keen sense of what luxury means.  

Is there another plant other than grass that would tolerate and facilitate my nightly corgi show?  I think not.  The most ordinary and familiar of plants can be of such importance in the big scheme of your landscape. 

I have devoted no small amount of time to a discussion of grade. Earth, moved up, and down.  Level ground makes people feel secure.  No one would enjoy a garden cocktail party on a slope. Once that grade is established, there are a lot of ways to handle the space.  It is as important to have functional and useable spaces as it is to have trees or roses. 


We like our grass.

Posted on: June 12, 2010 7 Comments
Filed Under: Landscape Design

Late Summer

The view out onto my terrace right now is lush and loud.  really loud. I like to plant this group of containers with a different color scheme every year.  This year’s  pink and red spectrum runs the gamut from light to dark, from moody to electric. But the overall effect is definitely on the rowdy side.  Sometimes you just have to get certain things out of your system by giving them a try.  Having never planted anything red at home before, I scratched the itch.  The Mital Italian terra cotta rectangles are on a north wall , so they demand a planting that is shade tolerant.  The red caladiums provide a lot of a rich red/green mix in the leaves- which I like. The tropical ferns and the vinca maculatum are essential to the look.  The red solenia begonias are brilliantly red.  Since red and green are opposite one another on the color wheel, the combination makes for a lot of visual action.  Had I the chance to do it over again, I would plant lime irisine in the back; that very tall lime green with carmine veins would make the caladium red read more dramatically.  The big empty wall behind those pots-wouldn’t you think I could sort that out?

There is nothing particularly fancy in this pot-red mandevillea, cherry sun zinnias, cherry million bells and giant pink petunias.  What is of interest is the vigor with which this planting has grown.  These plants like being neighbors, and they like this pot size and location.  Everything observed in the garden will come in handy the next time around.  Where’s my journal?

My pink begonias have suffered some from sun burn.  This has never been the case with the apricot or orange solenias.  It made me study the sun on this wall more carefully.  It turns out there is a lot more light here than what I thought; what I assumed was an eastern exposure is actually south easterly.  How I could have planted these pots 14 times for part sun and done ok is a testament to every plant’s will to live; they suffer me kindly. The red irisine has tried its best to grow luxuriantly, but the top leaves bleached from the sun during our long run of hot sunny weather.  I am hoping for a better fall. 

You can spot the sunburn on the pink solenia begonia in this picture. That orange solenia shrugs off the hot sun is called varietal variation.  This series of begonias is the easiest of all to grow, in my opinion. The pink apparently needs more protection from direct sun. I am sure there will be no pink begonias here in 2011; I am a quick learner.  I don’t mind trying to grow things that are tough to cultivate, but I have to balance that interest aginst how much time I actually have to put to any aspect of my garden.    


Though the botanical name is not part of my vocabulary, I do like polka dot plants. Available in white, pink, and rose, they remind me of a choir.  A big and coherent voice generated from a cast of thousands. They thrive on pinching; they thicken up, and represent.  This moody pink and green foliage plant compliments this rose pink and green caladium better than I could have hoped for.    

Last year this English concrete square of classical Italian design was home to a homeless ancient agave.  That agave went to a client this spring; I was on my own with a planting scheme.  Though I planted a white mandevillea, white angelonia, lime nicotiana alata, gobs of silverberry mini petunias and variegated plectranthus, I worried that the planting would never grow up into and spill over this massive pot.  It may be mid August, but I like what I am looking at now.   

I have never had pots on the limestone pillars integral to my front door.  My idea to move these antique English terra cotta log pots to the front, from the rear deck-capricious.  I so love the look of these pots here-but keeping water on them given a merciless exposure to western sun has been a challenge.  This variegated abutilon is great looking-I plan to have plenty of them for spring.  The verbena and lime licorice tolerate a hot spot.  How these small pots dry out has been a lot of trouble-worthwhile trouble.

I am so happy with my English concrete pots fabricated in the classical color and style reminiscent of Italy. This is my third season with them-and I think my most successful planting.  Taxus topiaries-I had never seen them before a visit to Mori Nurseries last year.  These double ball yew topiaries rule the garden just outside my front door.  They seem quite happy in these enormous pots-the soil moisture is steady.  The generous skirt of mixed petunias, cerise pink verbena and white bacopa-a perfect foil to that seriously dark green form.  I am delighted.      


My late summer garden views-I like them.

Posted on: August 18, 2010 8 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Design, Garden Ornament Tagged With:

Some Thoughts on Spacing

Once there is a landscape plan in place, there is the matter of the plant count.  Determining a plant count has much to do with spacing.  I have read much about rules for spacing plants properly for optimal growth, but the issue is more complex than that.  For instance, if I am planting pachysandra, and space them at a foot apart, I need one plant per square foot.  For 500 square feet, I will need 500 plants, or about 10 48 count flats.  If I space them at 6″ apart, I need 4 plants per square foot, or 2000 plants, or about 40 48 count flats.  Option A asks for a modest up front investment, but I see a lot of time ahead devoted to weeding, the purchase and spreading of a lot of mulch, and a lot of water thrown on bare ground.  I also see a grim looking space for probably 3 years.  My solution?  Start a groundcover bed small and plant densely.   Enlarge it next year, or the following season- only that number of square feet you can plant densely.  My mature, healthy beds of pachysandra-individual plants are much less than an inch apart.

Spacing evergreens has everything to do with the desired outcome.  Should I plant a taxus densiformis in the middle of the lawn, and give it 50 years to grow, I will have a single plant of considerable size.  A hedge, or a mass of yews is more about a community. Sometimes I look at the distance between the rootballs.  The big idea here-everybody has their own subterranean digs. This may mean that the foliage touches.   

Plants are much more sociable than I.  I want my space. I was never so conscious of the need for my own space than after my knee replacement.  I was less than stable on my feet, and was not interested in an enthusiastic Golden Retriever broaching my borders. But plenty of plants do well planted in close quarters.  They are completely happy to relinquish their individuality, and become a part of a larger community.

One of my most favorite landscape moments-the arrival of the plants.  These 1.5″ caliper fastigiate hornbeams in 25 gallon pots would be planted as if they were the poles of a pergola. Carpinus betulus “Frans Fontaine” is a culitvar of fastigiate hornbeam which is slower and more densely growing than the species.  Even so, it will grow 30′-35′ tall, and 15′-18′ wide. I spaced them at 8′ on center, knowing they would grow together.  Someday there would be a green roof under which there would be shade.   

I had other reasons which influenced my spacing.  The house next door loomed over this side yard property.  Evergreens would have provided year round screening, but they occupy a lot of space at the ground plane.  My clients wanted to entertain in this space.  Given enough time, and spaced close together, they would eliminate this view of the neighbor.   

Carpinus are also very tolerant of pruning.  Decisions about spacing are specific to the species in question.  The vast majority of green spaces have not been planted by a person.  There are those wild places densely populated by plants.  No natural forest or meadow is at equilibrium; some plants are coming on as others are in eclipse.  Perhaps a lighting strike will “prune” a giant tree such that new plants can take hold around it.  Should you be interested in the exceptions to any gardening rule, visit any wild and untended space. 

Five years later, the new yews have grown together to make a mass.  The topmost row of yews had been transplanted from the front of the house; the new yews will eventually cover their bare lower limbs.  It sometimes makes more sense to underplant an old and ungainly shrub rather than tear it out.  These big old yews will eventually become part of a simple mass.Eight years later, the house next door has all but disappeared. As the carpinus grow taller, they can be selectively pruned on the underside to permit easy passage beneath them. 


The yews planted behind the carpinus are planted on a gentle slope that rises to the neighboring driveway. Though the shade has become considerable, they are green and well needled from top to bottom.  Allowing those densiformis yews to keep their natural shape is in large part responsible for their continuing health.  Yews do not respond so well to hard formal pruning.  Once all light is blocked to the interior of the shrub by a proliferation of growth on the exterior, those inner branches will go bare.  I have begun planting Taxus media Moonii in place of Hicks yews, as their natural growth is much more upright and formal. 


This is a great spot to sit.

Posted on: August 31, 2010 6 Comments
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Garden Design, Woody Plants Tagged With: , ,