Viburnum
A garden without a viburnum is akin to life without music and art.
Michael Dirr
Michael Dirr, renowned horticulturist, author, and woody plant expert, is above quoted from his book that four decades of plant students, enthusiasts, and experts alike have been referencing, Manual of Woody Landscape Plants. Viburnum is a large genus, with at least 150 species (some taxonomists believe many more) found worldwide. Most often having a shrub habit, there also are tree-size species. Commonly considered a deciduous shrub, there also are several species that are evergreen. Most species produce reliable multiple-season interest in our landscapes. Spring flowers range in colors of white, off-white, and even a few with a pinkish hue. Autumn foliage displays can be beautifully reliable on many species. Additionally the fruits developed in late season may be the most flamboyant ornamental attribute.
(more…)Flowering crabapples, Malus sp.
Don’t sit under the apple tree
with anyone else but me…
Lew Brown & Charles Tobias
Flowering crabapples, Malus sp. are outstanding, small, ornamental trees. Their multiple-season interest begins in early-May with colorful flower buds. Often there are beautiful pink or red buds, even on some trees which may later have white blossoms. The flowers are the real show stoppers though, their gaudy, often fragrant, floral displays, ranging from whites, to pinks, to bright reds, have made them favorites, for generations of people, and centuries of bees.
(more…)Tree Peony, Paeonia suffruticosa
Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
John Milton
mirth and youth and warm desire!
One of our most sumptuous, and extravagantly desired, flowering shrubs is the tree peony, Paeonia suffruticosa. (There is also a relative, the herbaceous peony, Paeonia lactiflora, but we shall not discuss those in this article) Not trees at all, these long-lived, woody, shrubs attain a height of only three-to five-feet tall, but they are beautiful, and captivating in blossom. All of these small shrubs originated in China, Tibet or Bhutan, on forested mountains, but from the 8th century on, have also been extensively cultivated in Japan.
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