Reginald Farrer’s Lovely Viburnum

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Janet

On this Easter weekend of this exceedingly strange and sad spring, I give thanks for a joyous bouquet of pale pink outside my kitchen window and the comfort its dependable, early spring appearance offers. I first wrote about this shrub almost 30 years ago, in a column I had in a little community newspaper called Toronto Gardens. I later reprised it for my old website, but I decided it needed another nod of thanks here. Here is what I wrote in the early 1990s, after a mild winter, about Farrer’s viburnum (Viburnum farreri).

Record-breaking December and January temperatures in the northeast have resulted in one of my favourite shrubs putting on a winter flowering show. Not that Farrer’s viburnum (Viburnum farreri) ever waits beyond late March or early April to open its tight pink buds. But this winter, it broke dormancy well before Christmas and has been in bloom ever since, even with the mercury dipping to –16C (3F) one night. Prolonged frigid spells keep the pink buds just closed, but even one day of warm sunshine will nudge many into full flower. In fact, last week, I cut a few small branches and placed them in a bud vase so I could enjoy the sweet-scented flower clusters at my desk. But the warm indoor temperatures meant the blossoms lasted only a day or so before dropping, for this is one plant that truly thrives in the cold.

Given that I no longer “thrive in the cold” myself, it is such a treat to enjoy a shrub that does. This week, night temperatures are forecast to dip below freezing, but that won’t bother this shrub. Even on December 22nd, 2013, when I photographed the buds encased in ice that had fallen from the sky the night before, throwing Toronto into a multi-day power failure and bringing tree limbs crashing down all around the city, it still flowered months later.

Some years, it suffers snow just as its dark pink buds are plumping up, as happened below on March 9^th, 2012.

Truth be told, it’s not the most shapely of shrubs. This is how I found it at Mount Pleasant Cemetery on March 30, 2010, another early spring, just as the first inflorescences were opening on naked twigs.

But I can forgive its shape when it is literally covered with palest pink blossoms as the first leaves emerge, as it was here in my garden with forsythia in my neighbour’s garden behind it on May 7, 2019.

The history of Farrer’s viburnum is colourful. In 1914-15, British plant explorers Reginald Farrer, below, and William Purdom were prowling the foothills of the northern mountains separating China from the Mongolia border, collecting seeds of new species. Although the shrub was a favourite Chinese garden plant at the time, growing at very high altitudes, its “discovery” in the wild is credited to Farrer. Writes Alice Coats in her book Garden Shrubs and Their Histories. “He sent home abundant seed and would have sent more, but for an unfortunate falling-out with his Highness Yang Tusa, Prince of Jo-ni, who…in a fit of pique, set to and sedulously ate up all the Viburnum fruits in his palace garden, and threw away the seed.”

Originally called Viburnum fragrans to mark its sweet perfume, it was renamed in Farrer’s honour. Today, fragrant viburnum is considered a winter-flowering shrub in the Pacific Northwest and in Britain, where its flowers might open on a mild day in late autumn with flowering occurring sporadically until April. It likes full sun and reasonably good soil, but can’t be called a fussy shrub. Despite its tendency to early bloom, it is root-hardy only to USDA Zone 5a – Canadian Zone 6B, and benefits from some protection from harsh winds and winter sun. It reaches 2.5 – 3 metres (8 – 10 feet) at maturity with almost as large a spread. The flower clusters start out pale pink and fade to white and are quite modest in size — more like the Burkwood viburnum than the big snowball blossoms of the fragrant snowball Viburnum x carlcephalum. For small gardens or for low hedging, there’s a very good dwarf form called ‘Nanum’, which reaches about 1 metre (3 feet). There is also a white form, V. farreri ‘Album’, below.

Farrer’s viburnum was crossed with Viburnum grandiflorum at Bodnant Garden in Wales to give us Viburnum x bodnantense. This hybrid is usually seen as the cultivar ‘Dawn’, a lovely shrub whose flowers are rosier pink than Farrer’s.
Though, this state may occur at any age, it is a common occurrence in adults above the age of 40 but it’s possible for all men online levitra prescription from ages 18-infinity to be affected by it. Kamagra help achieve Bliss with commander cialis recommended for you your Partner during bed time. That is why most people will not face https://pdxcommercial.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Twin-Oaks-Brochure-2.pdf viagra discount store this problem at any cost. The blood purchase levitra online also flows to the vagina and clitoris, making the female more receptive to sexual advances and causing lubrication of the vagina.

Both Farrer’s and Bodnant viburnums are favourites of pollinating insects, given how early they flower. One year I found a bumble bee queen taking nectar on ‘Dawn’, below.

But more often than not, it’s better insect-watching in my own garden with Viburnum farreri. Below is the mourning cloak butterfly, which overwinters in Toronto and needs nectar as early as possible. This was April 16, 2017.

That same week, I found a red admiral butterfly on the flowers. Obviously, it needs to be above a certain temperature for insects to thermo-regulate, and that has been difficult this cold spring.

In 2012, one of the earliest springs I can recall in Toronto, we had a celebratory dinner on our sundeck on March 19, 2012 with little sprigs of Farrer’s in a cylindrical vase.

But it’s the perfume of those humble flowers that I adore, and that doesn’t necessarily transfer to the Bodnant hybrid. I read the following paean to its fragrance on a website, attributed to British garden writer Mark Griffiths: “We mustn’t let the bodnantense hybrids supplant their parent; V. farreri is twiggier and more crabbed and its flowers are smaller tighter and paler, but there’s far greater poetry in its looks and purity in its fragrance. Its perfume, to my nose, is more hyacinths and almond essence than heliotrope. On a drab winter’s day, its effect is magical in the garden and even stronger in a room, whether from a few cut twigs or a pot-grown plant brought indoors for winter. This scent seems less like reckless extravagance thrown away on the chill, bee-free breeze once one realises that V. farreri doesn’t behave with us as it does in its native China. There, it holds back all through the months of harsh cold and drought, not blooming until spring, whereupon it faces stiff competition for pollinators from other blossoms. Its alluring fragrance is prudent, not prodigal. Our winters are mild and wet by comparison and this encourages it to flower in fits and flushes from late autumn onwards.”

Toronto winters are more like China than England, I expect, so I appreciated what Helen Van Pelt Wilson and Léonie Bell wrote about Farrer’s, which they called the fragrant guelder, Viburnum fragrans, in their 1967 classic The Fragrant Year: “The fragrant guelder…has long been a favorite shrub, its perfume mysteriously combining the scents of wisteria and clove in the manner of certain lilacs. Unlike the familiar V. carlesii , which gives at best only ten days of bloom, V. fragrans flowers modestly for weeks on end. Even after our harshest winters, all the rose-red buds open to rich pink flowers that grow paler with age.”

I shall leave you with a little Easter nosegay. It’s on my kitchen table now. A few wisteria-clove-hyacinth-almond-scented sprigs of Reginald Farrer’s lovely Chinese shrub, along with the little striped, ice-blue Puschkinia scilloides and Corydalis solida ‘George Baker’. Aren’t we lucky that his Highness Yang Tusa, Prince of Jo-ni didn’t eat ALL of the seeds?

Japanese Cherries – April’s Enchanting Sakura

Posted on April 16, 2019 by Janet

Once upon a time, I had this quest to photograph Japanese cherry blossoms – sakura – in lots of beautiful places in the world. I travelled to Japan, of course, and managed to arrive during one of the earliest springs ever, foiling my desire to be there as the storied Somei-Yoshino cherries (Prunus x yedoensis) burst into blossom on bare, brown branches. We had to go north to the mountains of Takayama to find them.

In Kyoto, I visited the Imperial Palace and found Prunus ‘Ojochin’ at the gates. It means ‘large lantern”, and has been in Japanese literature since the 17^th century.

At the Kyoto Botanical Garden, the late-season cherries were in bloom, but I had to get help in Toronto later to translate the labels. This is ‘Yōkihi’, honouring a concubine of an 8^th century emperor of the T’ang Dynasty.

Prunus ‘Asano’ was found in 1926 in a garden in the village of Kami-Yoshida by England’s Collingwood ‘Cherry’ Ingram, a renowned collector of Japanese cherries. Its flowers resemble little chrysanthemums.

‘Hirano-nioi’ (like all cherries with “nioi” in the name) is fragrant.

‘Kirin’ was named for a fiery, dragon-like beast.

‘Ichihara-tora-no-o’, below, means “tiger’s tail”. As Wybe Kuitert says in his book Japanese Flowering Cherries, “With a little imagination, once can see a perfect bigger-than-life size tiger’s tail of cherry blossom in it.”

At Saihoji, the moss temple in Kyoto, a double-flowered cherry leaned over the formal path, contrasting nicely with a tall, magenta azalea behind it.

We visited Gion to watch Miyako Odori, the traditional springtime dance of the country. Naturally, cherry blossoms feature prominently.

In Japan, I found all kinds of pretty cherry blossom confections, including sakura-mochi rice cake and little sakura-adorned crepes.

When I visit London’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in early spring, I always make a point of searching out the Japanese cherry trees. This is a view of the Japanese garden Chokushi-mon (Gateway of the Imperial Messesnger) with a flowering bough of Prunus serrulata ‘Tai-haku’, “the great white cherry”.

‘Hokusai’ was selected by Cherry Ingram in 1925 and named for the woodblock artist Hokusai.

Hokusai, of course, painted many scenes of Japanese life, including the ancient tradition of hanami or cherry blossom watching. This is ‘Mount Fuji Seen Through Cherry Blossoms”.

‘Takasago’ is part of an old collection of Japanese cherries at Kew. It was originally collected by Robert Fortune, and was once known as Prunus x sieboldii or Von Siebold’s cherry.

In Ireland, I found a lovely white-flowered Japanese cherry at Mount Stewart House near Belfast.

Holland isn’t all spring bulbs. The Keukenhof Garden in Lisse has a number of Japanese cherry trees amidst the brilliant tulips and daffodils.

Monet’s beautiful garden at Giverny, France, features a few Japanese cherries. In the Clos Normand flower garden, Prunus serrulata ‘Ama-no-gawa’ (meaning “heaven’s river”, i.e. the Milky Way) shows off its typical fastigiate growth and double, pale-pink flowers.

In the Japanese-inspired garden at Giverny (Monet had a large collection of Japanese art), Prunus serrulata ‘Kanzan’ adds a rosy note beside a stream.

And at Paris’s Jardin des Plantes, Prunus serrulata ‘Kanzan’ (aka ‘Sekiyama’) makes ebullient bouquets outside the Natural History Museum……

….. while forming a flowery underplanting for the Eiffel Tower, below. Many catalogues and articles call this bubblegum-pink cherry by an obsolete name ‘Kwanzan’, but its proper name is ‘Kanzan’, which means “border mountain”. The alternative name ‘Sekiyama’ literally means seki=border + yama=mountain and is in a Japanese plant guide dated 1681. It is the most popular cherry in western countries.

At New York Botanical Garden, I found the unusual green-flowered Japanese cherry ‘Gyoiko’. The name means “coloured court-robes” and references the hues of the costumes worn by the women in the ancient Japanese imperial court.

Someday, I’ll return to New York Botanical to properly photograph the cherries in their collection on Cherry Hill. Here is dependable old ‘Kanzan’ fronting a lovely drift of naturalized daffodils.

On a visit to San Francisco, I watched a woman painting a Japanese cherry at the Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park….

….. and later found my way to wonderful Filoli Garden in Menlo Park, where the weeping Prunus x subhirtella ‘Pendula’ was in beautiful bloom.

Washington D.C. is renowned for its National Cherry Blossom Festival, and I was lucky enough to have my flight from North Carolina to Toronto via Washington cancelled in the capitol one spring and made a mad dash for the Tidal Basin, where Somei-Yoshino cherries (Prunus x yedoensis) lined the shore……

It online viagra has all the qualities which a person wants in an anti-impotent. Do something that devensec.com side effects viagra gets you outside your comfort zone. They had the task to obstruct any incoming fighter plane. viagra 100 mg http://www.devensec.com/district-development.html You can regain your love viagra sans prescription making desire just like in youth. … and graced the towering Washington Monument.

I then headed to Dumbarton Oaks, a favourite historic garden in Georgetown designed by Beatrix Farrand. Here I found lovely weeping cherries near the swimming pool…

….. and a pale-pink cloud of sakura on “cherry hill”.

If you visit Vancouver in early spring, you will be enchanted by the cloud-like Japanese cherry blossoms lining the avenues and adorning the parks. This is the boathouse at Stanley Park.

One spring, I found this handsome specimen of Prunus serrulata ‘Taki-Nioi’ overlooking the pond at Nitobe Memorial Garden at the University of British Columbia. It is an appropriate situation for this tree, whose Japanese name means “fragrant waterfall”.

Vancouver’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden featured Prunus x subhirtella ‘Pendula’ looking lovely in a bed of Oriental poppies.

Closer to home, the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario has a good collection of Japanese cherries. This is Prunus x yedoensis ‘Akebono’, bred in 1925 by the W.B. Clarke Nursery of California.

Here is a closer look. Isn’t it lovely?

Prunus ‘Pandora’ is a hybrid of Prunus x yedoensis and Prunus ‘Beni Higan Sakura’….

……that was bred by Waterer Sons and Crisp prior to 1939. Here’s a closer look.

The dwarf, weeping variety Prunus x yedoensis ‘Ivensii’ was introduced by England’s Hillier Nurseries before 1929.

Prunus ‘Accolade’ is a 1952 hybrid of Sargent’s cherry (Prunus sargentii) and Prunus x subhirtella from England’s Knapp Hill Nurseries. While very hardy, an extremely cold winter will often kill the flower buds.

When it does bloom, its pale pink, semi-double flowers are enchanting and….

…. often emerge adventitiously from small shoots on the trunk.

‘Accolade’ also has excellent autumn colour (as does parent Prunus sargentii), as shown here at Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

Mount Pleasant Cemetery also features a number of Japanese cherries, including Prunus serrulata ‘Ama-no-gawa’….

…. and Prunus x subhirtella ‘Pendula Rosea Plena’, the double-flowered weeping cherry.

Toronto’s High Park is renowned for its hillside allée of Somei-Yoshino Japanese cherry trees (Prunus x yedoensis)….

…. which always bear a closer inspection — sometimes even under a dusting of snow!

Beyond Japanese cherry trees, I look for arrangements featuring cherry blossoms, like this lovely Mother’s Day bouquet from Toronto’s Horticultural Design.

Sometimes, I even made my own arrangements, borrowing sake cups and filling them with sakura! This is the hardy and popular ‘Kanzan’, aka ‘Sekiyama’.

One year, I patiently stemmed the flowers to create a carpet of cherry blossoms.

But there was a reason why I wrote this blog on this particular day. It’s my memorial for Notre Dame Cathedral and its fallen spire. No longer will Parisians walking along the Seine glimpse that towering lead pinnacle above les fleurs de cerisier japonais…..

And even if people come back in springtime to sit under the blossoms by the sandbox in the playground on the Ile de la Cité …..

…. they will glance up and feel the enormous void left behind by this tragic inferno. France is already promising to rebuild Notre Dame, seeking funds from people throughout the world. Perhaps one day the cherry blossoms will frame the view of a sparkling new spire. Let us hope.

NOTE: I would like to acknowledge Wybe Kuitert and his vast depth of knowledge on all things Japanese flowering cherry. If you’re a serious student, you will enjoy his 1999 monograph Japanese Flowering Cherries, which is now out of print but available used.

Spring Lessons from Giverny

Posted on April 14, 2017 by Janet

Perhaps it’s folly to try to draw inspiration for our own gardens from one of the most famous gardens in the world – an enchanting 5 acres whose renown comes courtesy of its beloved former gardener and owner, Impressionist painter Claude Monet. The garden he made at Giverny is a short bus ride from the town of Vernon in Normandy, which is a 45-minute train ride from Paris’s Gare St. Lazare (direction Rouen). Now home to the Fondation Claude Monet Museum (Musée Claude Monet), the house and garden are visited by some 600,000 people annually.

When I was there a number of years ago, the Fondation allowed photographers and writers to apply in writing to visit on its closed day, Monday. I did so, and stayed in a bed & breakfast in the town of Giverny to be close enough to arrive early Monday morning and walk back to the b & b if it rained (which it did). However, they no longer close during the week and are open daily from late March through October 31^st, so everyone must line up for the 9:30 am opening (except those who buy their tickets ahead, allowing them to skip the line). In the summer months, the garden is often terribly crowded and difficult to get around, but on a morning or late afternoon in April, it can be quite delightful.

Interestingly, my photos come from a spring prior to British gardener James Priest’s tenure at Giverny, when the garden’s maintenance was still under the hand of head gardener Gilbert Vahé, who spent 34 years in the garden from 1977 (even before its reopening in 1980) to 2011. However, in 2017, with James Priest now gone, Vahé has come out of retirement to take over the reins once again, presumably to return the garden to some of its well-archived Monet-ness, i.e. “reproduction”, not “adaptation”.

Despite the fact that almost everyone who’s visited Monet’s garden has posted their photos or written a blog, and despite the fact that others think it’s just become too commercial or pretty, I believe that his garden offers some good lessons for all of us. Let’s explore a few.

1. DO NOT BE AFRAID OF COLOUR: My first lesson: Life is short, there are no rules, and a house can be pink stucco, with green shutters and veranda. Why not? Claude Monet, himself a master colourist, retained these colours for the house he first rented, then bought, living in it from 1883-1926. They were faithfully reapplied in 1980, when the house and garden were reopened after a restoration that brought it back to life after more than twenty years of abandonment following the bombing of Normandy during the Second World War. (And, honestly, I thought about working my Photoshop magic on the green paint of the veranda, below, but that’s what more than a half-million visitors will do to the stairs, and who am I to paint Monet’s house?)

2. BRING THE SAME COLOUR PALETTE INTO THE GARDEN: Given that your painted shutters and veranda are colourful, it follows that it’s a very good idea to extend that colour down to painted features in the garden like benches, fences and outbuildings. Not to be ‘matchy-matchy’, but so the eye moves easily from the house architecture right into the garden. This unified approach works whether you’re dealing with taupe or teal – or kelly green.

3. SPRING FOR SEASONAL BLOSSOMS FOR YOUR CONTAINERS: No, it doesn’t have to be a flowering crabapple tree and hothouse cinerarias in a ceramic Chinese pot, like Giverny, but do splurge on some pussy willows and daffodils and primulas to say farewell to winter and rejoice in spring.

4. TRY TONE-ON-TONE TULIPS: Let’s face it; this big bed would be truly boring if Giverny’s gardeners planted it with just one variety of tulip, so they don’t! They mix four cultivars, which the office could not identify for me, other than to say “four”. What that provides is a bit of pointillism that shimmers, rather than a block of colour. If you do this (and you should) make sure the tulips you choose are slightly different shades of a hue, but all the same class, whether it’s Darwin Hybrids, Triumphs or Late-Flowered tulips.

And be sure to remember the importance of humble, biennial forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica) when you’re designing your tulip plantings. Such an easy, beautiful way to carpet bare spring ground.

5. USE PANSIES & VIOLAS: It takes some planning to produce the beautiful combination in the photo below, where purple pansies and violas are in full flower underneath the tulips as they come into bloom. In mild regions like Normandy, pansies have no problem overwintering. But in colder parts of North America, like Toronto (USDA Zone 5-Canadian Zone 6b), pansies should be planted the previous September so they have time to establish roots before winter. That actually coincides with bulb-planting time, so you can fine-tune your colour choices and positioning of the pansies as you tuck in the bulbs. It’s a good idea to add a mulch (use a layer of shredded, damp autumn leaves) once the ground freezes, and choose the hardiest pansies and violas you can find. Try Icicle Pansies which have been bred for cold winter regions. The Delta, Bingo and Maxim series are also reportedly hardy in the north.

6. FRAME A VIEW: There’s a Monet family story behind those big, old yews at the end of the 172-foot long Grande Allée, for they were once the final evergreens in a double line of conifers that hedged this path. They can be seen in one of the many paintings Monet made in his garden, Pathway in Monet’s Garden, 1900, below:

Monet, looking for more sunshine for the flower garden he was making in front of the house, cut all the path evergreens down except this last pair, which his wife Alice Hoschedé-Monet persuaded him to spare. Apart from the grandeur of the yews as a penultimate focal point before the house facade, look at the way the gardeners have used pink forget-me-nots edging that long path to draw your eye to the pink house, creating beauty out of geometry and symmetry.

7. COLOUR WITH PAINTBOXES: When Gérald Van der Kemp arrived in Giverny in 1977 to restore Monet’s abandoned house and property, there was precious little in the way of garden records. With his American wife Florence, he had earlier established the Versailles Foundation in New York, attracting wealthy American donors to fund the restoration of the palace and gardens at Versailles. And it was $2.5 million in further American funding that would pay for the refurbishment of Monet’s house and garden. For details on the garden in Monet’s time, Van der Kemp and gardener Gilbert Vahé sought the assistance of André De Villiers, assistant to Georges Truffaut, the French garden magazine publisher and nursery chain founder, who had visited the garden and Monet often (below).

As well, Alice Hoschedé-Monet’s great grandson, the late artist Jean-Marie Toulgouat still lived in Giverny and was able to provide Van der Kemp with family correspondence, journals and photos. There were also photos made by Claude Monet himself and visitors, as well as letters he had written or that others had sent to him that mentioned the garden.

As to the colour beds in the Clos Normand, we must imagine Monet playing with his paints, choosing felicitous combinations in the same way he might have combined pigments on his easel — which is why these beds have been described as paintboxes. Rather than a riot of colour, they are planted in discrete hues and kept separate from each other, below.

There are pinks….

….and mauves and lilacs….

…. and blues……

…. and yellows…..

….and reds that pair beautifully with the deep green leaves of emerging perennials…..

….and even the colour of the emerging peonies, here shown in the rings used to keep them upright in spring rains.

In Elizabeth Murray’s book Monet’s Passion: Ideas, Inspiration and Insights from the Painter’s Garden (1989, 2^nd edition 2010), she wrote: “To increase the various atmospheric effects of the garden, Monet planted rich orange, pink, gold and bronze wallflowers and tulips together on the west side of the flower garden to emphasize the effects of the setting sun.”

“Using blue with clear yellow was one of Monet’s favored color combinations…” wrote Elizabeth Murray, and this pretty pairing of Dutch irises with yellow wallflowers and tulips illustrates the wisdom of that choice.

The Kamagra at the cheapest prices with the same ingredient unica-web.com buying generic viagra and standard quality assisted these patients to avail the treatment without paying higher prices. Again, same ingredient has been used in it with the help of anti impotence drugs. viagra best https://www.unica-web.com/archive/2001/wmmc.html is the great blue pill which conveys superb outcomes. In this time, several procedures of pregnancy recommendation are obtainable from each of our entry australia viagra tips similar to Quantitative serum HCG screening. Most people with depression are usually viagra for sale mastercard prescribed the medicine for immediate relief.

But it’s in the arrangement of the solid blocks of brilliantly-coloured tulips in the Grand Allée, looking under the rose arches towards the house…..

…..and to the bottom of the Clos Normand…..

….that we see the closest intimation of the paintings that Monet made in 1886 after visiting the bulb fields of Holland. Here is Tulip Fields With The Rijnsburg Windmill (1886)….

…and Tulip Fields at Sassenheim (1886).

It’s these powerful reminders of Monet’s art that makes the garden resonate for me.

8. PLANT FLOWERING TREES: Every garden needs trees with spring blossoms – Monet appreciated this, and painted the garden when his trees were in bloom, as in Springtime at Giverny (1886), below:

Whether ornamentals, like the many lovely Japanese cherries, including slender Prunus serrulata ‘Ama-no-gawa’, shown below in the Clos Normand……

….or edible fruit trees such as pears, plums and apples – like the beautiful espaliered apple trees trained as fencing around the lawn, below, spring-flowering trees play a structural role in Monet’s garden.

9. REMEMBER FRAGRANCE: It’s a simple lesson, but one that we often forget. Scented flowers should be planted where we can appreciate their fragrance. At Giverny, that means a row of Narcissus ‘Geranum’ edging the path…..

….. or a tumble of hyacinths planted where we can inhale their sweet perfume on the wind….

…… or a truss of fragrant snowball viburnum (V. x carlcephalum) at nose height as we pass by.

10. GARDEN THEMATICALLY: Claude Monet became passionate about Japanese arts and crafts. His large collection of woodblock prints by Hiroshige, Hokusai and Utamaro is still displayed on the walls of his house. And in the garden, he turned to the Japanese landscape school to inspire him in creating his famous lily pond. We see the Japanese influence especially in the presence of the bamboo…..

…daylilies……

….. ‘Kanzan’ flowering Japanese cherry, below, and other Japanese flora in the area…..

…including the brilliant azaleas and Japanese maples on its shore.

10. PLAY WITH A POND: For many visitors, the lily pond at Giverny offers the most intimate connection to Claude Monet, given that the wisteria over the Japanese bridge (like the waterlilies, not in bloom here) is the original vine and the bridge itself……

….still looks much as it did in Monet’s The Japanese Footbridge, painted in 1899.

And, of course, there were his many paintings of the famous nymphaea or water lilies, some of which I saw in 2016 in a magnificent show called Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse at London’s Royal Academy of Arts

But any pond needs context and perspective and a connection with the rest of the garden, and in this respect, Monet’s pond offers other good lessons. The edges are planted to offer foreground interest no matter where visitors stand…..

…. and the weeping willow lends an air of mystery, its long branches cascading to suggest a gauzy screen.

Standing beside the pond, it’s easy to imagine Monet here with his easel — something made easier considering there is video footage of him painting his famous water lilies here at the pond’s edge.

As we leave the pond and Giverny, it seems appropriate to conclude with one of Monet’s masterpieces, painted exactly 100 years ago, its genius that quixotic alchemy of sunlight, reflection, water and flora which, his vision failing, he strived to perfect for the last three decades of his life. I give you Water Lilies, 1917.

La Vie en Rose(s)

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Janet

La Vie en Rose…. I am not a chanteuse, but I love Edith Piaf. And I am not a rosarian, but I do love roses. That doesn’t mean I’ve actually grown many roses – other than a very constrained ‘New Dawn’ (see below) and a 5-year fling with the yellow-flowered Father Hugo’s rose (Rosa xanthina) which ultimately died in the border, leaving in its wake its progenitor, the pale-pink rootstock dog rose (Rosa canina). Before I pulled it out, I popped a sprig in a vase and photographed it. Amen. Rest in peace.

PEGGY ROCKEFELLER ROSE GARDEN, NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN

But despite steering clear of roses and their fickle needs, I’ve seen many hundreds of them in the 25 years I’ve been photographing plants, and every June I indulge a little fantasy in which I have a garden spilling with their fragrant blossoms. It’s easy to feel that rose fever, when you find yourself wandering the paths of, say, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, as I’ve done for their annual June Rose Festival.

It’s a hugely popular crowd event in early June, with food vendors at the entrance.

It’s in gardens like Peggy Rockefeller that you can see storied roses at the height of their beauty, like ‘New Dawn’ (Wichuraiana, 1930), below, one of the classic, low-maintenance pink climbing roses. I grow this climber myself in a 4 foot-square garden (why did I plant it there? who knows?) against the brick support of my front porch, forgetting to prune it until June, hacking it back when it threatens to trail over the cars in the driveway and generally ignoring it in its spot behind an overly-large boxwood. It has never been sprayed or fertilized, is rarely watered, and gives me sprays of cupped, light-scented, tea-type blooms over the veranda railing in early summer. When happy, it’s a massive thing, growing 10 feet (3 m) tall and 15 feet (5 m) wide – enough to cover a garage wall (And yes, since this is my second PINK blog for the month of May, I’m going to be focusing entirely on pink roses!)

Below is another beauty from Peggy Rockefeller, ‘Climbing Pinkie’ (Cl. Polyantha, 1952) with masses of small pink flowers on almost thornless canes that can reach 10 x 10 feet (3 metres). It’s considered fairly disease-resistant and is an excellent re-bloomer. Because of its growing habit, many gardeners like to train this rose along the top of a fence and let the flowers cascade.

Paul’s Himalayan Musk (Hybrid Musk, c. 1899) is another giant that finds ample room to show off at Peggy Rockefeller Rose garden. A Royal Horticultural Society award-winner, this rambler festooned with masses of drooping clusters of small, double, pale-pink blossoms can reach a stunning 40 feet (13 m) in height in favourable conditions. Shade-tolerant and slightly fragrant, it flowers only once, but with such abundance it can be forgiven for taking a rest for the balance of summer.

If you like landscape roses (I find them a little boring, frankly, as I don’t expect the ‘queen of flowers’ to be “landscape” anything), there are now lots of really good pink ones from which to choose, including the Drift Series from Star Roses. They had several Drifts at Peggy Rockefeller, often interplanted with giant mauve Allium cristophii. Below is ‘Pink Drift’.

EXPLORER ROSES

One of my very favourite roses in the Rockefeller garden, not least for its Canadian heritage, ‘John Davis’ is a gorgeous, ultra-hardy, modern shrub rose, bred in 1977 as part of the Explorer series by the late Canadian rose-breeder extraordinare Felicitas Svejda. Her breeding program to develop shrub roses that rivalled old French roses for beauty while managing to withstand the harshness of Canadian prairie winters (many to -40F-40C) produced some 25 roses from the mid-70s, all with the names of early explorers. ‘John Davis’ is on many rose-lovers’ “favourite” list, with its masses of fragrant, clear-pink blossoms in early summer on a 7 foot (2.1 metre) tall shrub that can be trained as a climber.

Now let’s head across the border to the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario, where we find another wonderful Explorer rose. At 10 feet (3 metres) tall and wide, ‘William Baffin’ (Explorer shrub rose, 1983) is the biggest of Felicitas Svejda’s ultra-hardy introductions (she bred it in 1974 but it was released 9 years later). Gardeners who’ve tried to corral its thorny canes aren’t in a hurry to repeat the experience but the masses of cerise-pink flowers borne in clusters in early summer are truly a magnificent sight.

And bees, like the bumble bee below, love the exposed stamens of single or semi-double roses like ‘William Baffin’. Though roses don’t offer nectar, their pollen is an excellent source of protein for bees.

OLD ROSES

When I want to sniff the incredible perfume of the old garden roses, I make my way to the collection beds at the Royal Botanical Garden. There I can find most of the classics – if I’m lucky, even before they’ve been hit hard by black spot, which tends to be a common problem with many of them. Here are a dozen of my favourites in montage form.

In case you can’t read the caption, they include:

1^st row, left to right: ‘Belle de Crecy’ (Gallica, 1829), ‘Ispahan’ (Damask, 1832), ‘Henri Martin’ (Moss, 1863); ‘Variegata di Bologna’ (Bourbon, 1909).

2^nd row, left to right: ‘Fantin Latour’ (Centifolia, 1900), ‘Cardinal Richelieu’ (Gallica, pre-1847), Rosa muscosa (Common Moss Rose), ‘Petite Lisette’ (1817-Alba/Damask).

3^rd row, left to right: ‘Mme Isaac Pereire’ (Bourbon, 1881), Rosa gallica ‘Versicolor’ (Rosa Mundi), ‘Charles de Mills’ (Gallica, year unknown), ‘Tuscany Superb’ (Gallica, 1837)

Its beautifully-shaped, neon-pink blossoms made ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’ (Bourbon, 1868) a favourite of accomplished gardeners like Vita Sackville-West, and it continues to enjoy popularity today, especially since its branches are thornless. (Those canes tend to flop around, so it should be trellised.) Like all the Bourbons, it is intensely-perfumed and the flowers look like those of the most exquisite hybrid tea. I only wish Wave Hill Gardens in the Bronx, New York, where I photographed Zéphirine, below, could find a more felicitous background for those blossoms than orange brick. Design hint: pink roses look best against olive green and charcoal grey.

With its deep cerise-magenta flowers, the Apothecary rose, Rosa gallica var. officinalis, is another old rose with a very long history. About 4 feet (1.3 metres) tall and wide, extremely fragrant, reasonably disease-resistant and free-flowering in early summer, it is known historically from around 1400 when it was used by ‘officinals’ or apothecaries for medicinal use. I often find this lovely rose in medicinal herb gardens.

Hence it should be consumed taking into consideration that the Commission really wanted incentives to be provided via pay and promotions, what would be the best way to enact this? levitra generika When evaluations into ethics and compliance programs are administered, ethic leaders look to see if processes exist that associate the company values with employee’s’ evaluations. That will in turn increase blood flow to the penis, thus helping the user to maintain erection for a longer time and is usually lost before ejaculation. http://appalachianmagazine.com/tag/north-carolina/ generic levitra online When this condition goes uncheck, this can lead to a shocking affect into the little finger and ring viagra online continue reading description finger, if the nerve is irritated. If you look at your dollar bill, it says accounts receivable, so that your silver certificate was replaced by the promise of the federal government to make your dollar worth a appalachianmagazine.com discount levitra dollar.

DR. HUEY

Speaking of strong colour statements, ‘Dr. Huey’ (Hybrid Wichuraiana, 1914) is an interesting rose. Seen below at Chanticleer Garden (have you read my two-part blog on my favourite public garden?) outside Philadelphia intertwined fetchingly with a light-purple clematis, it was commonly used in the U.S. as a rootstock under budded roses, including hybrid teas and many of the David Austin English roses (in contrast to “own-root” roses). As such, it often emerges as suckering growth – either alongside the purchased rose (quite comical, when it soars high above a yellow hybrid tea) or in its place. But that vigor below-ground does not translate to disease-resistance above-ground, since ‘Dr. Huey’ is known to suffer considerably from black spot and other diseases. Still, those dark, wine-pink flowers on long, outspread canes are a very romantic look, and if you can keep it healthy, cheeky interloper or not, it’s a beauty.

MODERN SHRUB ROSES

Perhaps no rose was as popular in the 1990s in my neck of the woods than Bonica, below In fact, it was named “the world’s favourite rose” in 1997 (but who ran the contest? hmmmm….). Bonica is what I call it, but like many plants these days, that’s just a trade name and its actual cultivar name is ‘MEIdomonac’. Bred by French rose giant Meilland, it’s a lovely thing . Because of its compact 3-4 foot (1-1.3 metre) size can be incorporated into a perennial border of pinks, blues and purples, grown on its own as a specimen, or used as a low hedge. It’s very serviceable, with lovely flowers that look like ‘old roses’. Unlike most old roses, however, it will re-bloom throughout summer when deadheaded.

At the Toronto Botanical Garden, there’s a prominent bed where two modern shrub roses grow in a pretty, all-pink confection The David Austin English Rose Mary Rose (‘AUSmary’) is at the rear, growing to about 4 feet x 4 feet (1.3 m x 1.3 m) while the front features the sweet rose ‘The Fairy’ (Polyantha, 1932).

‘The Fairy’ makes a great companion to English lavender, shown below at Toronto’s Spadina House.

It is disease-resistant and an exceptionally long bloomer, often gathering frost on its last little buds in late autumn. Aren’t those blossoms sweet?

Speaking of Spadina House, I do love the bountiful rose display at the front of the historic home, including the old rambler ‘Dorothy Perkins’ (Wichuriaiana, 1901), below. It was the first rose released by American rose giant Jackson & Perkins, and named by breeder Alvin Miller for Charles Perkins’ granddaughter. Its brash pink might not be for everyone, but it is a party when it’s in flower in early summer, but sadly often plagued with mildew and diseases.

And while I have you at Spadina House, let me show you another charming companion for early-season roses. Look at these enchanting columbines (Aquilegia vulgaris) below, cozying up to the beautiful, scented, hardy rugosa hybrid rose ‘Thérèse Bugnet’.

Many of English rose breeder David Austin’s introductions have the look and perfume of old French roses; some even bear evocative French names. Redouté (‘AUSpale’), below, is a light-pink sport of Mary Rose (mentioned above), and the same height, with ‘fruity old rose’ fragrance. Named for the renowned 19th century painter of old roses, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, it is meltingly beautiful and would have made a prized still life subject for the artist.

Back to Toronto Botanical Garden for another little landscape rose, this time from German rose breeder Kordes. This is cherry-pink Sweet Vigorosa (KORdatura), which looks right at home with June perennials like Veronica longifolia ‘Eveline’, left, Achillea tomentosa, right, and coreopsis in the rear.

ROSES AND CLEMATIS

Growing roses with clematis is a long tradition, especially in European gardens. It’s best to choose a clematis that can be cut back to buds near the ground in spring, i.e. one that flowers on new growth. For the tallest pink roses, a purple Viticella like ‘Etoile Violette’ or ‘Polish Spirit’ would be a good match. In the photo below from Deep Cove Chalet Restaurant (one of my favourite spots to dine) outside Victoria, B.C., we see mauve-pink Clematis ‘Hagley Hybrid’ intertwined with a tallish shrub rose or low climbing rose. I love that look.

Since we’re talking pink clematis, I’ll mention one of my favourites: ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’ (NOT Bouchard, as it’s often written). This bubblegum-pink vine would be perfect clambering through a pale-pink shrub rose – like one of the David Austins, e.g. Redouté or Queen of Sweden.

Clematis ‘Alionushka’ is a non-twining clematis (the herbaceous C. integrifolia is one parent) that needs something to support it, so it’s a very good candidate for training up into a shrub rose of about the same height.

ONE MORE COLD-HARDY ROSE

Since I’m a prairie girl originally (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan until the age of 6 weeks, when I left for the balmy west coast city of Victoria, B.C., dragging my parents behind me), I’m going to end my homage to pink roses with one that many gardeners consider to be vastly underused. ‘Prairie Joy’ is a product of Canada’s Morden Research Station in Manitoba, a vase-shaped, upright rose to 5-6 feet (2 metres) with a flush of the most gorgeous pink blossoms in early summer, followed by generous repeat flowering throughout summer. Since the very thorny canes tend to swoop down, it is recommended that ‘Prairie Joy’ be trellised or tied loosely to an obelisk.

And on that very pink note, we bid adieu to May and welcome in rose season. But don’t forget to join me in early June, when we’ll be taking a promenade through PURPLE in a gorgeous Toronto garden!

The Rosy Buds of May and Beyond

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Janet

Yes, it’s May, and the garden is bursting with fresh spring colour. Greens are still bright, pests haven’t yet made serious inroads, and there’s still a sense of anticipation about what the rest of the spring season holds. And on that note, why shouldn’t it hold some pink? (Especially since I promised you ‘pink for May’ in my 2016 New Year’s resolution!)

The word ‘pink’ is believed to come from the Dutch phrase pinck oogen or “small eyes” and was used to describe flowers of the Dianthus genus that we know as pinks, with their small coloured eyes. Plants like this little Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria) that pops up along my path at the cottage at Lake Muskoka….

….or the common grass pink (Dianthus plumarius), with its deliciously spicy clove perfume and lime-loving ways.

Its use in colour terminology, i.e. ‘pink-coloured’, dates from 1680, referencing the same genus of plants, but increasingly coming to have other meanings and connotations, such as “in the pink” for health, relating to complexion and the 20th century “pink for girls and blue for boys” social construct that saw everything from maternity ward bracelets to toys and furniture divided into two camps. Interestingly, pink and blue are conjoined in Panatone’s 2016 Colour of the Year, which I blogged about a while back.

The use of pink plants in garden design schemes seems to have had its heyday in the 1980s, when pretty pastels and combinations of pink-lavender-purple-blue-silver were popular. That “pink for girls” look subsided considerably over the next few decades, when hot colours, dark foliage schemes and green-on-green designs came into their own. But pink-inflected borders are still lovely, and a hallmark of the June garden, when pink peonies and the complementary blues and purples of lupines, irises and other early-summer perennials create a romantic mood, as they do below at Toronto’s Spadina House.

There are loads of pink-flowered perennials and I’ll tackle some of my favourites another time. But in this blog I want to talk about hardy shrubs and vines with pink flowers. It seems reasonable to do that chronologically, so I’m starting with my favourite pink magnolia, the enchanting and exceptionally early-blooming little ‘Leonard Messel’ Loebner hybrid magnolia. A cross between white-flowered Magnolia kobus and the pink form of star magnolia Magnolia stellata ‘Rosea’, it is very hardy and utterly enchanting, with its starry pink flowers. Put lots of glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii formerly Chionodoxa) under this one!

‘Leonard Messel’ is best in a protected spot away from wind and weather and lovely with the first spring bulbs. However, a killing frost in early spring in colder regions (twice in 10 years in Toronto) will turn those brave flowers brown, so caveat emptor.

Japanese cherry trees (Prunus x yedoensis, P. serrulata, etc.) are an iconic – if fleeting – sign of spring in many parts of the temperate world where sakura flower-watching is enjoyed. In colder regions, like Southern Ontario where I live, the choices are somewhat limited, but there is one that I love for its abundant pale-pink flowering show in late April or early May. Prunus ‘Accolade’, shown below, is a 1952 hybrid from England’s Knapp Hill Nurseries, a cross between a form of Prunus x subhirtella and the very hardy, northern Japanese hill cherry Prunus sargentii, aka ‘Sargent’s cherry’, named for its American collector Charles Sprague Sargent. As a bonus to its flowering, it will also usually turn soft apricot-gold in autumn.

The flowers of ‘Accolade’, below, are exquisite, and arguably the tree is one of the hardiest available for northern gardeners (apart from the early Yoshino cherry, Prunus x yedoensis and the later, double-flowered and rather harsh pink Prunus serrulata ‘Kanzan’). But there’s a little hitch: if winter temperatures flirt with historic lows in the mid-to-low -20s Celsius, the flowers will often blast without opening. Even in a mild winter without excessively low temperatures, if the mercury drops unseasonably in early spring as the buds are plumping up – as it did in Toronto this April – Japanese cherries will not flower profusely; some will not flower at all. But that’s the chance you take.

An early, pink-flowered shrub to consider is Farrer’s viburnum (Viburnum farreri). I have this in my own garden and it sometimes opens in March in an unseasonably warm spring. Even better is the hybrid Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’, below, which is a 1934 selection by Bodnant Nursery in Wales of their cross between V. farreri and V. grandiflorum.

‘Dawn’ is also favoured for its early nectar by bees and overwintering butterflies like the mourning cloak.

Rhododendrons are a mainstay of the milder west coast and the warmer regions of the northeast into the Carolinas, but there are many that are perfectly hardy for us here in USDA Zone 5 (Zone 6 Canadian zones). Among the best pinks are the ultra-hardy, small-flowered rhododendrons bred by Weston Nurseries in Massachusetts. Indeed, I once had eleven of these – a combination of Rhododendron ‘Aglow’ and ‘Olga Mezitt’ – in my front garden for a spring show that brought the neighbours around to ooh and ahhh. In time, the prairie perennials I grew for my ‘second act’ in summer crowded and shaded out these spring lovelies – and in truth, they were never happy with the soil, which was essentially alkaline clay. But they’re highly recommended for people who don’t mind the somewhat brash neon colour and can’t bear the thought of cosseting the big-flowered rhododendrons to protect them from winter sunshine and resulting leaf dessication. Look how lovely ‘Olga Mezitt’ was, with its pink tulip and blue forget-me-not companions.

A closeup of the beautiful flower truss of ‘Olga Mezitt’.

And here is ‘Aglow’ at the Montreal Botanical Garden. Spectacular, isn’t it, for a shrub that can survive -30F (-30C) unprotected without bud damage?

The Eastern redbud tree (Cercis canadensis) is one of the most beautiful of the native northeast sylva. It seems like a little miracle that those pea flowers should emerge on bare wood, transforming each limb from drab winter brown to brilliant raspberry-pink. This little grouping of redbuds at the Toronto Botanical Garden includes two pinks, a white-flowered form and the weeping dwarf cultivar ‘Covey’.

A closer look at Eastern redbud at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

And here’s a better look at Cercis canadensis ‘Covey’ (trade name Lavender Twist – and don’t get me going on the misuse of “lavender” as a colour term), which seems like it was born to cascade over this stone wall!
This solution lives up to expectations by obstructing a certain catalyst (phosphodiesterase-Pde5) in the body and fits in with a bill that says you’ve got to have a physician physically present for taking online viagra, then I’ll take this bill seriously,” Marty said.Marty also voiced opposition to the other abortion bill passed Monday by the committee – legislation that would subject abortion clinics to health department licensure and. First, lost reproductive ability Infection can affect the patient’s emotion more or cheap cialis viagra less, or even inhibit normal ovulation. Best Ways To Maintain Your viagra overnight canada Health 60 ounces of water. These herbal semen enhancer pills are developed using pure plant tadalafil uk ingredients and oils.

Moving along through spring, we have the gorgeous tree peonies and interspecific Itoh hybrid peonies. You could easily find dozens of beautiful pink tree peonies and Itoh variaeties, but it would be hard to beat Paeonia Itoh Group ‘Morning Lilac’, shown here with catmint (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’).

And ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’, below, is another beautiful pink Itoh peony.

One of the most elegant, pink-flowered spring shrubs is Calycanthus x raulstonii ‘Hartlage Wine’. This superb selection of a hybrid between Carolina allspice (Calycanthus floridus) and the Chinese species C. chinensis was developed at the North Carolina State University arboretum headed by the late J.C. Raulston. The hybrid honours Raulson, while the selection is named for Richard Hartlage, the grad student who made the cross.

I do know that weigelas (Weigela florida) are not much in fashion these days amongst the horticultural cognoscenti, given that they were much overplanted in decades past. But they are largely problem-free, gorgeous in flower, and quite attractive to pollinators, especially bumble bees. (Incidentally, my friend Rebecca Alexander, erudite librarian at the University of Washington Botanic Gardens Center for Urban Horticulture, points out that the genus should be pronounced VYE-guh-la, since it’s named after German Botanist Christian Ehrenfried von Weigel –and certainly not wuh-JEE-lia. But imagine the looks you’d get at your local nursery as you ask for Vyeguhla!) I think they are lovely shrubs with exciting variety in their flower and leaf colours and forms, especially the beautiful variegated-leaf cultivar ‘Variegata’. Skilful pruning immediately after blooms fade helps maintain a vigorous shrub, but rejuvenation pruning may be required every few years to remove the oldest wood and keep the shrub at a reasonable height.

I’ve also seen weigela grown as an unexpectedly attractive flowering hedge.

Mmm…. lilacs. Everyone loves lilac season, with those magnificent perfumed trusses of the deep-purple, reddish-mauve, white or soft lilac flowers that gave that hue its name. While true pink isn’t seen in the many named lilacs descending from the common lilac Syringa vulgaris, it is found in a class of late-bloomers generally called the Preston lilacs (Syringa x prestoniae). The name honours Isabella Preston, the Canadian plant breeder whose work in the 1920s and 30s with crosses of the late Syringa villosa (shown below) with Syringa reflexa resulted in so many excellent and hardy shrubs, mostly known as the Villosae Group. Lightly-scented (of privet, rather than the typical lilac scent), they flower 10 days to 2 weeks after common lilacs.

Other breeders worked with these lilacs too, such as Dr. Frank Skinner in Roblin, Manitoba, who developed the beautiful pink-flowered ‘Hiawatha’, on the left below, in 1932. On the right is ‘Isabella’, developed in 1928 by its namesake Miss Preston.

Syringa x prestoniae ‘Miss Canada’ was introduced, appropriately, in Canada’s Centennial year 1967, by Dr. William Cumming at Manitoba’s Morden Research Centre, a cross between Syringa josiflexa ‘Redwine’ and S. x prestoniae ‘Hiawatha’, above. What a pink beauty she is.

Syringa x prestoniae ‘Ferna Alexander’, was introduced in 1970 by Boston horticulturist John H. Alexander, who recommended appreciating these late lilacs for themselves as exceptional shrubs, rather than comparing them to the familiar common lilac and its selections. I photographed this rare beauty at the top of the Lilac Dell at the Royal Botanical Garden, Hamilton, Ontario, on June 10, 2011. It’s named for the grandmother of current Arnold Arboretum plant breeder J.H. Alexander III, so a tip of the hat to the breeding talents of the Alexander family.

Here’s another beautiful pink Preston from John H. Alexander – ‘Alexander’s Aristocrat’. It seems to me that the RBG and other lilac gardens should be propagating these unusual introductions and making them available in commerce so we don’t lose them for future generations.

Finally, while I’m immersed in pink lilacs — and I could go on and on with pink Prestons I’ve photographed: ‘Alice Rose Foster’, ‘Danusia’, Romeo’, etc. — let me finish up with a beautiful pink, Chinese species lilac from the David Lam Asian Garden at the U.B.C. Botanical Garden in Vancouver (though hardy in cold regions as well): the spectacular Syringa sweginzowii. If that doesn’t knock your socks off, I don’t know what will.

Can you imagine the joy they must have felt at the Arnold Arboretum that day in June 1915 when beautybush (Kolkwitzia amabilis) flowered for the very first time in North America? The seeds had been collected fourteen years earlier near Hubei China by Ernest Wilson, but there was no foretelling that this stunning pink apparition would be the result. Wilson himself was so fond of it, he said: “Among the deciduous-leaved shrubs that central and western China has given to American gardens Kolkwitzia stands in the front rank.” I agree – and feel so lucky that my neighbour planted two beautybush shrubs along our property line, which I get to enjoy as borrowed scenery each June.

Though the species itself tends to be a pale, almost fleshy-pink, the one below in Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery has the rich colour of the selection ‘Pink Cloud’, a 1946 introduction from the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley.

My final pink-flowered favourite is Robinia x slavinii ‘Hillieri’, a pretty 1930 selection of the hybrid ‘Slavin’s locust’ developed by New York breeder Bernard Slavin, who in 1919 crossed pink-flowered Robinia kelseyi with the large, white-flowered North American native black locust, Robinia pseudocacia.

With its wisteria-like pink flower clusters much sought out by bumble bees, it’s a lovely sight in early June, though it does bear prominent thorns. I photographed it at Mount Pleasant Cemetery down the road from my home in Toronto, where choice plants have been grown by the arborists on staff for many decades. Sadly, it appears that this tree is not easily found in North America – a shame, really, because it’s a good choice for a small garden.

I could continue indefinitely with pink woody plants for spring, including crab apples, hawthorns, deutzias and, especially, roses (tune in next time for pink clematis & roses). But it’s May, and there’s gardening to be done.

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

Category Archives: Pink/Mauve

Reginald Farrer’s Lovely Viburnum

Japanese Cherries – April’s Enchanting Sakura

Spring Lessons from Giverny

La Vie en Rose(s)

The Rosy Buds of May and Beyond

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: