My crown for May 31st wafted its fragrance around my head and made me wish I could bottle its sweet perfume. That would be the scent of the Meyer lilac (Syringa pubescens ‘Palibin’) that I planted in my fragrance garden long ago. The white flowers are from my big alternate-leaved dogwood (Cornus alternifolia), an Ontario native shrub. And the fluffy spheres are an ornamental onion, Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’.
Much of the joy of lilac time is that it only lasts a week or so – if you just grown one type – so I’ve learned to savour that scent on the air or in a vase on my kitchen table, along with dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis).
Unlike the towering common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) which, if left unpruned, grows so tall that it flowers out of nose range, my Palibin dwarf lilac is just the right height to sniff at 5-6 feet (1.5-1.8 m) and a little wider. Some people grow it as a tightly-clipped hedge, but I prefer to let it have its natural shape.
True, it has a light scent, not the old-fashioned perfume of the Hyacinthiflora hybrids or common lilac, but it is nonetheless an ultra-hardy and low-maintenance fixture in my fragrance garden, and swallowtail butterflies enjoy nectaring on the tiny florets.
Its ancestor was found as a cultivated plant grafted on privet roots near Beijing, China in 1908 by Frank Meyer, who brought it to the U.S. It was named in his honour, Syringa meyeri, before being reclassified as Syringa pubescens subsp. pubescens ‘Palibin’. (Despite the fact that it was never found in Korea, it is often confused in the trade with the Korean lilac species, S. patula and its cultivar ‘Miss Kim’, as well as littleleaf lilac, S. microphylla.)
No such taxonomic confusion surrounds one of my favourite garden plants, the alternate-leafed dogwood (Cornus alternifolia). Native to a large swath of northeast North America, it is sometimes called pagoda dogwood for its layered branching. It occupies a corner of my garden that sits just a few inches lower than the rest of the back yard, and appreciates the extra moisture there. It is approximately 18 feet (5.5 m) tall and almost as wide.
It derives its Latin and common names from the fact that, unlike other dogwoods, the leaves are arranged alternately, rather than opposite. Some people refer to it as “pagoda dogwood” for its layered branching.
When it blooms in late May or early June, it is completely covered with creamy-white clusters of tiny flowers that attract native bees. I now have a few offspring of my original shrub seeded throughout my garden, which fills me with joy. And this morning I noticed the familiar flowers reaching over the fence from my next-door neighbours’ yard. I’m not sure they’ll know it was a gift from me, but it seems that my dogwood is intent on taking back native habitat from boring back yards! Hurrah!
In late summer, birds and squirrels make quick work of the blue fruit clusters….
….. and in October, the foliage turns a lovely rose suffused with gold.
Then there are the alliums, or ornamental onions. When I first planted Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ a few decades ago, I didn’t expect that it would be quite so exuberantly happy in my garden. Translated, that means it seeds itself around vigorously, especially in spots that dry out in summertime.
The good news: the bees love the violet-purple globes on 3-foot (90 cm) stems; the bad news: the plants look seriously ugly as the leaves turn yellow.
Rather than let them grow in a thicket, like I do in places, the best approach is to intersperse them among herbaceous plants, such as Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum), below, with old fashioned dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis). The latter is a biennial that took decades to creep under the fence from my next-door neighbor’s garden. It is native to Eurasia and considered an invasive in some parts of North America where early settlers brought it to grow in their gardens. Driving home from New Jersey last week, I saw it growing in drifts along the side of the highway in Pennsylvania and upstate New York.
Perhaps no other weed has as many common names: dame’s rocket, damask-violet, dame’s-violet, dames-wort, dame’s gilliflower, night-scented gilliflower, queen’s gilliflower, rogue’s gilliflower, summer lilac, sweet rocket, mother-of-the-evening, Good & Plenties, and winter gillyflower (Wiki). As for its Latin name, Hesperis comes from the Greek word hespera, meaning evening, referring to the plant’s nocturnal fragrance.
In my front garden, Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ pops up, along with the hybrid Allium ‘Globemaster’, amidst the emerging foliage of grasses and summer perennials. Dramatic purple exclamation points in a sea of green, they offer a charming interlude in this quiet, green period between the last spring bulbs and the sages and catmint of June.
And then there’s an unassuming little native perennial that most of my neighbours would consider a weed. Virginia waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum) grows in shady spots in my garden and, unlike the European weeds that like to colonize every square inch of freshly-dug soil, it picks its spots carefully. Its name comes from the white patterns that adorn the foliage of many, but not all, plants. When its tubular, white flowers bloom above the lobed leaves in late May, they are very popular with bumble bees and other native bees.
Earlier this month – on Friday, May 13th to be exact – my husband Doug & I began a 12-day road trip through the northeast U.S. to celebrate his university reunion in New Jersey and to tour as many public gardens as we could fit in along the way. On that first day, we drove from Toronto to Rochester, New York in order to enjoy the first of three May weekends at the Rochester Lilac Festival at Highland Park. It bills itself as the largest free festival in North America and given the already-filled parking lots and hordes of people milling in the park, I can believe it. Walking towards the lilac plantings, we passed booths with huge lilac bouquets….
….. and themed t-shirts….
….. and vendors of cut flowers that were NOT lilacs.
And, yes, there was cotton candy. It’s a festival, after all.
Given the hot temperatures and sunny skies as we arrived at mid-day, photo conditions were terrible for photography – but oh-so-perfect for perfume, which wafted everywhere!
But I did manage to create some photos on the shady side of the shrubs, including one cultivar I later nominated as one of the top 3 lilacs of the (admittedly abbreviated) roster we viewed. Meet Syringa vulgaris ‘Jessie Gardner’, a 1956 introduction by the Gardener Nursery in Wisconsin.
There are more than 500 varieties (species, cultivars, hybrids) of lilacs and more than 1,200 lilac shrubs arrayed on the gently sloped hillsides of Highland Park. Because they originate in extremely cold climates in Europe and Asia, lilacs have no problem surviving winter in upstate New York and southern Canada. Other big collections are held at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison and the Katie Osborne Lilac Garden at Ontario’s Royal Botanical Garden. I have also photographed the lilac collection at the Montreal Botanical Garden and rare species lilacs such as Syringa sweginzowii from China in the David Lam Asian Garden at UBC Botanical Garden in Vancouver, below.
There are many lilac types that provide a long season of flowering, from April into June in certain climates. Flowers are officially assigned Roman numerals for colour: I-White, II-Violet, III-Bluish, IV-Lilac, V-Pinkish, VI-Magenta, VII–Purple. Interestingly, we often refer to certain flowers being “lilac coloured”, which according to its origin in the “IV-Lilac” hue of the common lilac Syringa vulgaris is neither the lavender-blue nor the mallow-mauve that people often mistake as “lilac”. In doing my various explorations on colour, I’ve grouped true lilac-coloured flowers in this montage.
Part of the difficulty of assigning a colour to lilacs is that the flowers change colour as they age, which you can see below with S. vulgaris ‘Professor Sargent’, named in 1889 by German botanist and nurseryman Franz Späth for Charles Sprague Sargent (1841-1927), first director of Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum.
I am very partial to the Hyacinthiflora Hybrids, aka the Early Hybrids, partly because I live in a place where winter lasts well into “spring” and these fragrant lilacs tend to flower a few weeks ahead of the common lilac and its cultivars, and partly because the Canadian breeder Dr. Frank Leith Skinner (1882-1967) of Manitoba had a major role in their development. They are hybrids of S. vulgaris and the broadleaf Korean lilac, S. oblata or S. oblata var. dilatata. So the second of my Top 3 lilacs at Rochester was Syringa x hyacinthiflora ‘Excel’, a 1935 Skinner introduction which performs exactly as its name suggests, with excellence!
Another beautiful Frank Skinner Hyacinthiflora Hybrid is pure white ‘Sister Justina’, below, introduced in 1956.
Nearby was a common lilac cultivar, Syringa vulgaris ‘Frederick Law Olmsted’, hybridized by Father John Fiala (1924-90) and named in 1987 for Olmsted, the man sometimes called the father of American landscape architecture, who with his partner Calvert Vaux designed many well-known landscapes including New York’s Central Park and Rochester’s own Highland Park, the site of the lilac festival! Father Fiala was legendary in lilac circles for authoring the book “Lilacs: A Gardener’s Encyclopedia”.
Father Fiala also bred this beauty, S. vulgaris ‘Albert F. Holden’, also in my ‘Top 3″, with its deep-violet, very perfumed flowers with a silver reverse (similar to ‘Sensation’, but not as crisply white-edged). It was named for the man who endowed the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, Ohio.
Rochester features many of the so-called “French hybrids” bred by the nurseryman Victor Lemoine and his son Emile between 1870 and 1950. Among them are S. vulgaris ‘Linné’ from 1890, sometimes called ‘Linnaeus’ – the ultimate tribute name in botany.
Syringa vulgaris ‘Leon Gambetta’ with its double flowers, below, was introduced by Lemoine in 1907, its name honouring the French lawyer and republican politician who proclaimed the French Third Republic in 1870 and played a prominent role in its early government.
‘Jules Ferry’, also introduced by Lemoine in 1907, was named for a former Prime Minister of France during the Third Republic.
‘Paul Thirion’ was introduced by Lemoine in 1915 and is a popular and fairly common lilac. Lemoine named it for a horticulturist at Nancy Parks, France. It is classed as VI-Magenta in colour.
Syringa vulgaris ‘Frank’s Fancy’, bred in the 1970s by Edward Mezitt of Weston Nurseries in Massachusetts and named for his friend Frank Goodwin, looks very magenta to my eye but is classed as VII-Purple. Blame it on the light.
For me, this is a classic and beautiful lilac truss: mauve buds opening to pinkish-lilac florets on S. vulgaris ‘Frau Wilhelm Pfitzer’ introduced by Germany’s Pfitzer Nursery in 1910.
Syringa vulgaris ‘Silver King’ was bred by Wisconsin’s Dr. A. H. Lemke in 1941; its flowers are classed as III-Bluish but they are as close to silver as you’ll see.
Another type of lilac flowering at this time is the hybrid Chinese lilac, Syringa x chinensis, sometimes called the Rouen lilac because it was discovered in 1777 flowering in Rouen, France. It is a cross between common lilac, S. vulgaris and Persian lilac, S. persica, from Iran.
Then there is S. x chinensis ‘Bicolor’ with its purple eye on pale pinkish flowers.
Seed of this unusual lilac, Syringa ‘Rhodopea’ was collected by botanist Václav Stříbrný in 1900 in the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria and cultivated in the botanical garden in Prague. It has a different bearing and, according to the International Lilac Register is “not a uniform clone”, which accounts for it not always being included in the S. vulgaris clan. Speaking of the Register, it is an invaluable resource to those searching for information on lilac cultivars and can be accessed here as a .pdf file.
Finally, I had to commemorate our Rochester visit with a husband-and-wife selfie, because who wouldn’t want to remember what it was like to stand amidst these perfumed shrubs on a warm afternoon in May?
As we packed up the crumbs from our picnic lunch (devilled egg sandwiches made in my Toronto kitchen at dawn!) and made our way back to the car to drive on to Utica for the night, I asked a young mother if I could take a farewell photo for my blog, which she happily agreed to. What lucky children to run amongst the lilacs.
******
LILAC PEOPLE
Speaking of selfies, what fun it was during my few hours at the Rochester Lilac Festival to run into someone I knew only as a Facebook friend. Brian Morley of Kansas City, Missouri is a man of many talents. Not only does he co-own a fabulous business called Bergamot & Ivy Design with lush, innovative floral designs, he is also an accomplished lilac hybridizer and is on the Board of Directors of the International Lilac Society. It is a small world, but perhaps not so small when people who love lilacs gather in a famous spot devoted to the genus Syringa. And we gave each other’s lilac wardrobe choices an approving nod!
During my freelance career, I have been fortunate to correspond with renowned lilac experts, including the late Freek Vrugtman, International Lilac Registrar and Curator Emeritus of Ontario’s Royal Botanical Gardens, which features a large collection of lilacs in its Katie Osborne Lilac Dell, below.
Freek Vrugtman proof-read my May 2008 story on Hyacinthiflora lilacs for Canadian Gardening magazine, below….
…… and we chatted by email when I had a question on lilacs. After his death on March 3, 2022, the RBG published a memorial tribute which included the following passage: “Working with RBG’s other staff, including Charles Holetich and Leslie Laking, Freek directed considerable attention to the collection and became the International Registrar for Lilacs in the Genus Syringa in 1976, as RBG became the International Cultivar Registration Authority, or ICRA, for Lilacs. Whenever a new cultivar was bred anywhere in the world the breeder would submit a request to Freek for its entry into the International Registry. Freek would review all such applications and guide the breeder through the process. As Registrar Freek became widely known as the international expert on Lilac cultivars.“
When I had a lilac identification question Freek couldn’t answer, he passed it on to the RBG’s lilac specialist, Charles Holectich: “What do you think, Charlie?” Way back in 1994, when I was writing my weekly newspaper garden column for the Toronto Sun, I interviewed Charles Holetich for some hints on caring for these lovely spring shrubs. This is my column from May 22, 1994 – twenty-eight years ago! Below that I’ve included the interview as a Q&A.
JD: What’s the best location for lilacs?
CH: Lilacs prefer open, sunny locations and neutral soil, though they will grow in slightly alkaline or slightly acid conditions and are found in both.
JD: What about drainage?
CH: They dislike wet feet, so if planted in clay-type soil which has a tendency to retain moisture, you should make a hill about 2 feet high and 8-10 feet wide, so excess moisture seeps away.
JD: If it’s located in full sun, does a lilac shrub need to be fertilized?
CH: If it has too much foliage and not enough bloom, that means it’s high in nitrogen. In order to induce flower buds, you should feed it with a high phosphate (middle number) fertilizer like 4-12-8 or 5-45-15. This should be done immediately after flowering because next year’s buds are being formed in June, July and August.
JD: What about all those seedheads? Must they be removed and how can you reach the top ones on a big shrub?
CH: When summer has adequate rainfall, then it doesn’t matter because there’s sufficient energy to bring enough nutrients from the soil to satisfy the formation of both seedheads and flowering buds. But in drought summers, you should remove seedheads and water deeply, about 5-6 inches once a month.
JD: Pruning confuses a lot of lilac owners too.
CH: I think the ideal for a multi-stemmed lilac is to have 9-15 stems of different thickness positioned so they don’t rub each other. Once this is achieved, then every two years or so, you should remove one or two of the oldest stems at ground level, keeping up to 3 new shoots. Then the next year, you can decide which of the three is the best to keep and remove the others.
JD: How tall should a lilac be kept pruned?
CH: I’m a strong believer that a lilac should be deliberately kept pruned at between 6-9 feet.
********
To all the passionate lilac lovers, growers and breeders, I tip my fragrant hat, fashioned with trusses of my own Syringa pubescens ‘Palibin’ and lily-of-the-valley (or, as it’s accustomed to being addressed in my garden, “guerilla-of-the-valley”….)
My 7th fairy crown for late May was created at our cottage on Lake Muskoka, a few hours north of Toronto. It features native wildflowers and fruit: red-flowered eastern columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), common blue violets (Viola sororia), wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana), lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium), the poet’s narcissus (Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus) and a little weed for good measure, yellow rocketcress (Barbarea vulgaris).
If my city garden takes a somewhat naturalistic approach to gardening, it is nonetheless situated in a traditional urban neighborhood. It might be the most flowery front garden on the street, but I’ve worked to make it fit in with the lawns up and down the block by having a hedge as a side boundary; by retaining old clipped boxwood shrubs on either side of the front stairs; and by paying attention to pleasing floral succession, from the earliest snowdrops to the last asters. And my neighbors do love it. In contrast, the meadows and garden beds I created atop Precambrian bedrock at our cottage on Lake Muskoka a few hours north of Toronto are truly wild-looking – and there’s no need to fit in with any neighbors. (I wrote about gardening at the lake in my extensive 2017 blog titled ‘Muskoka Wild’.)
I don’t grow tulips there — they’re just not right for the lake — but my fairy crown for May 20th features the last daffodil of the season, the poet’s daffodil (Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus).
Daffodils grow amazingly well in the acidic, sandy soil here since they love to dry out in summer, popping up each spring amidst the big prairie grasses and forbs.
Besides the poet’s daffodil, one of my favourites is the highly scented Tazetta variety ‘Geranium’, below.
My grandchildren have all experienced nature on Lake Muskoka. This is Oliver exploring another perfumed daffodil, ‘Fragrant Rose’.
And there is nothing more satisfying than a bouquet of perfumed daffodils on the table in April or May.
On many occasions, I’ve tucked a bunch of daffodils in my bag as I head back to the city.
Daffodils flower concurrently with our little native common blue violet, Viola sororia.
Viola sororia is native to Muskoka, as it is to much of northeast North America. It doesn’t take up a lot of room and grows wherever it pleases, but always with a little shade and moisture at the roots.
Apart from violets, the landscape here features a large roster of native plants, including the lovely eastern columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) that pops up in the lean, gravelly soil where many plants might struggle. I try to sow seed of this species, being careful to leave the seeds uncovered since light is necessary for germination.
But wild columbine is very particular about where it wants to put down roots, and always surprises me when I see the first, ferny leaves pop up in a new location in spring.
Hummingbirds are said to enjoy the dainty flowers of eastern columbine, but I confess I’ve never seen them doing so. I would have to lie in wait on rocky ground by the shore, not as much fun as sitting comfortably on my deck watching them fight over the ‘Black & Bloom’ anise sage (Salvia guaranitica).
Muskoka and wild blueberries just go together naturally, and somebody’s grandmother always made the very best wild blueberry pie in August. In our family, it was my husband’s mother, and she taught her grandkids her secret recipe, including my daughter. So I’m always happy to see the queen bumble bee pollinating those first wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium) flowers in May.
But just in case the chipmunks find our berries before we do, we always make a stop at the wild blueberry stand on the way to the cottage from town.
Wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana) bloom in Muskoka now, too, and on parts of my path above the lake they form a perennial groundcover so dense that I am sometimes afraid to step into their midst, lest I damage them.
But there are always enough strawberries ripening months later to make my grandkids pause on their way to the lake to sample the fruit…
…tiny, admittedly, but oh-so-sweet and juicy.
Similarly, May is when the dark-pink flowers of black huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata) adorn the shrubs in the shade of the white pines along the lakeshore. The deep-purple fruit will ripen in August and though somewhat seedy, it is sweet and good for eating raw or baking.
There’s a native serviceberry here at the lake too, but don’t expect to see billowing clouds of white flowers like those big species further south. Its Latin name Amelanchier humilis gives a clue as to its shape, “low, spreading serviceberry”. Still, native andrena bees love nectaring on it in May, as do the bumble bee queens, which nonetheless must remain wary of crab spiders looking for their own meals.
My crown’s golden jewels are flowers of the common European weed in the mustard family, yellow rocketcress (Barbarea vulgaris). In Europe, it’s called ‘rocket’ or ‘bittercress’, suggesting a strong-tasting, edible green. Indeed, my foraging friends would recommend picking the basal leaves as they emerge in spring or the rapini-like flower buds (raab) to cook in recipes. Failing that, just wait for the mustard-yellow flowers to appear and wear them in your fairy crown!
I use my smallest vases to display these delicate blossoms of spring on the table – a welcome celebration of nature’s return to the shore of a lake that was thick with ice just weeks earlier
If my fairy crown for May 24th makes me look like a shady lady, blame it on the woodland plants now emerging under deciduous trees freshly leafed-out in my garden. Most prominent in my crown is lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis), which I have nicknamed “guerilla of the valley” for its invasive nature. Native Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum) with its pendant, green-tipped, white flowers is visible over my right eye. The fuzzy white flowers are fothergilla, from the shrubs in my front pollinator garden. The lavender-blue flowers are Camassia leichtlinii ‘Caerulea’, and since the fragrant snowball viburnum (V. x carlcephalum) was still perfuming the air, I added one of those, too.
Most prominent of my woodlanders is native Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum). I love this plant – for its tall, elegant stems that always arch in the same direction, its pendant, pearl-drop flowers, its brilliant, gold autumn color and its absolute ease of care.
Each year, my drifts get a little bigger but it is easy to pull out by the roots if it meanders too far down a border. It thrives in a partly shaded location in my side yard garden where, along with other woodlanders, it flanks the winding entrance path under my massive black walnut tree and is a joy from spring to fall.
Alas, the same cannot be said of my lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis). I suspect many gardeners have come to regret the day they bought a certain plant or ignored one already growing in their gardens. Since we’ve lived in our house for almost 40 years and there was not much here in the way of gardens when we bought it, I suspect it was hiding under overgrown shrubs along the property line. So when I began to dig out new beds and borders, enriching the soil with amendments and adding a big roster of desirable perennials, the lily-of-the-valley began its territorial march. So stealthy was this invasion and so quickly did it change the dynamic of my garden that I renamed it ‘guerilla-of-the-valley’. You can see it as a green carpet under the bulbs in this photo of my grandson tiptoeing through the tulips.
Not everyone has this problem; indeed many friends find it difficult to grow and would love a few pips; some garden writers even call it a “useful groundcover”. To that, I point to their dense, mat-like roots so tough to dig out and mutter Caveat emptor.
Nevertheless, the fragrance from my front garden in mid-May is enchanting and I always enjoy cutting the stems for little bouquets, either on their own or combined with other flowers in bloom now, including the fragrant viburnums, blue camassia, common grape hyacinth and small daffodils, including amazing, long-lasting ‘Golden Echo’, below.
In my front yard pollinator garden, the fothergilla shrubs (F. ‘Mount Airy’) come into flower now with their scented, cream-white, bottlebrush inflorescences. Depending on the amount of summer sunshine and rain or irrigation my garden receives (and fothergilla does prefer adequately moist soil), the leathery leaves take on vivid fall colours of yellow, gold, apricot, scarlet and purple.
I love white and blue combinations in the garden and this fothergilla-camassia duo is delightful.
Camassia leichtlinii ‘Caerulea’ is such a lovely spring bulb, a cultivar of Pacific Northwest native Leichtlin’s camas or ‘quamash’ that is surprisingly hardy in the east. My camassia clumps expand each year, as they do in the camas prairies of British Columbia, Washington and Idaho where their edible roots which were a food staple for native peoples. The gorgeous blue flowers offer nectar to queen bumble bees, below, and honey bees provisioning their nests; they also make beautiful cut flowers.
Camassia has a place in my lily pond garden in the back yard as well.
Like tulips and daffodils, camassia foliage should be allowed to turn yellow to feed the underground bulb. If camassia has a fault, it’s that the blooms last such a short time, but for me, a brief, utterly memorable scene is better than one that lasts so long that you stop noticing it. Here’s a little musical video tribute.
Along with the camassia, the weeks-long parade of tulips culminates now with the Single Late tulips featuring elegant flowers on tall stems.
Among my many favorites are purple-black ‘Queen of Night’….
….rose-pink ‘Menton’…..
….and orange-scarlet ‘El Nino’…..
… with its cyclone swirls of salmon, orange, yellow and pink.
My fifth fairy crown for May 13th features the tall, elegant, lily-flowered tulip ‘Ballade’, one of my favorites, an award-winner and a little later-flowering than some in its class. The white flower clusters are from two of my fragrant spring viburnums, V. x burkwoodii and V. x carlcephalum. The little blue flowers are forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica) and there are common grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) in the crown as well. That yellow flower is a rare garden plant whose name is derived from the French for lion’s tooth…. dent-de-lion. Yes, I have dandelions. Lots! And at the top is a little sprig of the blossoms of my late and much-mourned crabapple. You see, I made my fairy crowns last year and decided to write about them this year, since most years pass in a familiar pattern of flowering….
…. but as summer 2021 wore on, it was evident that my crabapple tree was dying. Sadly, these were the last shimmering, May blossoms from the weeping ‘Red Jade’ tree whose branches had cascaded gracefully for 34 years over the lily pond I dug myself in the middle of our back garden. Here’s a photo from 1987 of me with my late dad who was visiting from Vancouver. You can see the newly-planted crabapple to my left.
Since ‘Red Jade’ is an alternate-bearing hybrid, it only put on a good flowering and fruiting show every other summer. Introduced in 1953 as an open-pollinated seedling from Malus × scheideckeri ‘Exzellenz Thiel’ at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, it is one of just a few weeping crabapples.
In its flower-bearing springs, the tree was alive with bees of all kinds, including bumble bees, below.
And in late summer, the birds paid visits for the tiny jewelled fruit – the perfect size for their beaks. But you can see in the photo below that the tree had already lost its leaves to apple scab in summer. Gardeners tend to assume trees will outlive them – or certainly last through their ownership of a garden – but this is not always true, especially of crabapples. Still, along with the sadness of losing a cherished plant comes the opportunity to select a replacement; fortunately we now have a broad range of cultivars with resistance to apple scab, fire blight and other diseases. Or perhaps I’ll choose another species, but whatever tree I choose must be as useful to all the bees, birds and animals that have been sustained over the decades by the white flowers and small, jewelled fruit of my ‘Red Jade’ crabapple.
At Christmas, we often strung lights on the crabapple and it lent a festive air to the garden outside our kitchen window.
The pond itself remains a vital part of the garden. Though I launched it all those years ago with great ambition and a plan to grow waterlilies and other floating plants, I learned in time that it is one of the higher maintenance features in any garden. The aquatic plants were constantly upended by marauding raccoons; the liner leaked and had to be replaced. So, despite writing a 1997 book called Water in the Garden as part of a magazine-sponsored design series, I gave up on the idea of aquaculture and just treated the pond as a large birdbath and watering hole. And bathe and drink they do: robins, cardinals, sparrows, juncos and many other birds that bring a spark of life to the garden.
Under the crabapple tree, the crescent-shaped garden around the pond is carpeted in spring with a cloud of blue forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica). So fond am I of this humble little biennial that I once persuaded a magazine editor to let me write its praises. “Sometimes, on a lovely May morning, as I’m looking at the robins bathing in the lily pond in my back garden, I’ll squint a little and imagine what it would look like without that lacy froth of light blue under the ‘Red Jade’ crabapple tree. Dirt, that’s what it would look like, and the emerging green of perennials, of course. But not nearly as enchanting as the soft blue cloud that floats around the lily pond.” When my forget-me-nots stop flowering, I pull them out while giving them a good shake where I want them to bloom the following spring.
The forget-me-nots flower at the same time as common grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum), a lovely symphony in blue. This grape hyacinth with its azure-blue spikes is the last of the genus to bloom in my spring garden and almost hidden in my fairy crown.
Along with the blue Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) now hitting its stride and the little Confederate violets (Viola sororia var. priceana) that grow wild in my excuse for a lawn, the forget-me-nots and grape hyacinths look lovely in small bouquets.
This is Virginia bluebell (Mertensia virginica) time, too – a lovely, native spring ephemeral. I wish I had much more of this beauty.
Ostrich ferns blanket the earth beneath the Burkwood viburnum (V. x burkwoodii) in my sideyard, whose clustered, white flowers are also tucked into my fairy crown. A hybrid of two Asian species, V. carlesii and V. utile, it reaches 10 feet tall and 7 feet wide and is a very low-maintenance shrub, preferring a partly-shaded site….
…. where the perfume from its blossoms permeates the air around it.
Another favourite viburnum, flowering a few days later than Burkwood is the fragrant snowball viburnum (V. x carlcephalum). This shrub grows beside my sundeck so its big, pink-budded, waxy flowers are at just the right height for me to sniff….
…..and to cut and float in a dish so we can enjoy its spicy scent indoors, too.
Though the flowers aren’t in my crown, my serviceberries bloom at this time, too – a pair of tall Amelanchier canadensis shrubs hidden away in a sideyard where I can’t even see them in flower – but the birds have no trouble finding the fruit a few months later!
Tulip season is long, from the Single Early class to the Late or Cottage class; provided temperatures stay somewhat cool, I have tulips in my garden for up to 6 weeks. Lily-flowered ‘Ballade’ is one of my favourites, and reasonably perennial. Its fluted, mauve-pink blossoms edged crisply with white are spectacular, eventually opening to the sun like waterlilies.
When I removed my fairy crown, I carefully undid the floral tape so I could place the blossoms in water to enjoy for a few days, these treasured blossoms of spring.
What’s a spring garden without weeds, like the dandelions that greet every May with a flourish? My husband likes the challenge and exercise of trying to keep the garden dandelion-free, and in a place where herbicides for decorative purposes have been rightly outlawed, that requires a lot of hand-weeding.
Along with the European dandelions comes another European invader, the red fire ant (Myrmica rubra). This little insect with the mighty sting has become a nuisance pest in gardens throughout temperate North America, including mine. That means if I want to tiptoe through the tulips – and dandelions – of May, I had better be wearing shoes!
And just in case you think that I grow lovely spring bulbs with a few dandelions, my garden also has a healthy crop of invasive garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) at this time in spring, especially in the far reaches out of sight. But I drew the line at including this ubiquitous biennial weed in my fairy crown!
