I LIKE PLANTS THAT EARN THEIR KEEP. By that I mean they do more than a week or two of showing off; they look good in more than a single moment, or season. The small-ish to medium trees in the genus Stewartia are a good bet if that’s the kind of multi-season interest you are looking for. Sound good?
The Latin specific epithet, or species name, of the Stewartia I grow is pseudocamellia, which roughly means it disguises itself as a camellia when in bloom (a nod to the look of its lovely and plentiful white June-into-July flowers, and the fact they are very distant relatives in the Tea Family).
But this Stewartia, from Japan, which gets to maybe 25 feet or so in a Northeast garden setting and is happy in part shade or sun, isn’t content to offer up just nice flowers for the privilege of living with you. It gives you peeling, lovely bark all season long (below), and hot fall color, too, as the leaves eventually change. I should warn that it grows slowly, so this is an investment piece, not instant success, and adaptable to Zones 5-8.
I like my stewartias to be multi-stem and breaking low from the base, instead of single-trunk, but such aesthetic considerations are up to you. A bigger cousin is S. monadelpha, also from Japan; S. koreana (from where it sounds like it’s from) is another showy choice, with orange bark.
What I insist is that you at least agree to look at Stewartia next time you’re in a good woody plant nursery and think of this: What other garden-scale tree gives summer flowers (preceded by showy marble-size buds, bottom photo, by the way, in my pseudocamellia); hot fall foliage, plus winter interest in the form of textural bark and lovely structure?
Guess after reading this you already know the answer to today’s quiz,
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Flowers are usually the first things that grab our attention when we are selecting plants to add to our landscapes. However, most plants only flower for a short period of time, so it behooves us to consider plants’ other attributes—and there are many! Sometimes the same flowers that seduced us into opening our wallets are replaced with an amazing fruit display. Colorful fruits of all shapes and sizes can add drama to our landscapes throughout the year. In addition to their visual beauty, many fruits are important sources of nutrition for wildlife, particularly birds. Here are a few examples of awesome plants whose fruit shines in the garden in summer, fall, and winter.
Living and working in northwestern Oregon, garden designer Wesley Younie is no stranger to dealing with challenging environments. When presented with this garden’s elevation changes, drainage management, and extreme climate conditions, he devised a plan that addresses it all—along with a specific functional wish list from the homeowners. Want to know which plants he used? Here are the plant IDs for this beautiful, sustainable landscape.
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Each year, I look forward to watching the bleak winter landscape begin to come to life as if transitioning from black and white to Technicolor. Yellow is one of the first colors to appear with the flowers of forsythia and our state flower, yellow jessamine. As I was driving to work this week, I noticed a new color emerge amidst the roadside trees.
A recent visit to Maplewood Gardens in East Flat Rock, NC where there is an incredible collection of Japanese maples. The Mr. Maple nursery specializes in these beautiful maples.