Fairy Crown #5 – A Crabapple Requiem

Posted on May 13, 2022 by Janet

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!

******

Want to see more of my Fairy Crowns?
#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza

Tuliptree – A Beautiful Forest Giant

Posted on February 25, 2022 by Janet

Today, the weather is frosty with a few more inches of snow to add to the melting pile in my garden. Thus, it is the perfect time to think about June, when the robins and cardinals are singing high above and the tulip tree’s flowers are morphing from chlorophyll-rich green to yellow, with bees foraging in the blossoms. Bees like the big carpenter bee here (Xylocopa virginica).

I filmed that carpenter bee foraging in the flowers on June 9, 2017. Listen to that joyous avian chorus!

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All kinds of bees enjoy the nectar-rich flowers of tuliptree…. or do you prefer “tulip poplar”? Since it’s neither a tulip nor a poplar, let’s go with the Latin, Liriodendron tulipifera, one of our most beautiful and stately native North American trees. This is Augochlora pura, the pure-green sweat bee.

When Linnaeus gave this North American native tree its Latin binomial name in his 1753 Species Plantarum, he combined two Greek words for the genus: leiriŏn, meaning “lily”, and dӗndron, meaning “tree”. Then he added the specific epithet tulipifera, meaning “tulip-bearing” or “tulip-like”. So, a “lily tree” with “tulip-like” flowers – the poor thing, such a derivative identity! In fact, it is classed as Magnoliaceae where its height and size have earned its title as “the king of the Magnolia family”. You can see those magnolia traits in this close-up showing the spiral arrangement of the stamens and pistils on a conical receptacle. Unlike more recently-evolved angiosperms with distinctive sepals and petals, tuliptree flowers have whorled parts called tepals.

It is the tallest tree of the eastern forests of North America, with one specimen in a secret location in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina believed to hold the record at 190 feet (58 m). Though I haven’t seen the tree in the wild, its native range does extend into the Carolinian forests on the north shore of Lake Erie and southwest shore of Lake Huron in Ontario. But I did focus my lens high up into the flowering canopy of the 160-year old specimen at Princeton University, below, the tallest tree on campus at 135 feet (41 m) with a 16-foot (4.8 m) trunk circumference. As is typical for mature specimens, this tree had lost its lower branches.

When I was at New York Botanical Garden in spring 2012, I loved walking through the tuliptree allée there under the beautiful canopy of the trees planted more than a century ago according to the design of architect Calvert Vaux, who also worked on the landscape plan for Central Park with Frederick Law Olmsted.

In Toronto, the best specimens of tuliptree are in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, with some young enough to offer their flowering branches at a low enough level for me to observe them. A beautiful tree near the gates at Yonge Street features variegated leaves; in commerce this tree is called ‘Majestic Beauty’.

Research has shown that Liriodendron tulipifera it is one of the most nectar-rich species of trees, by a factor of hundreds of times more nectar volume than other species. The nectary area on the internal surface of the tepals, a special epidermis tissue called “nectarostomata”, is emblazoned with yellow and orange markings to attract pollinators. Colourful floral markings like this, aka “nectar guides”, are an evolutionary adaptation to act as a signal to insects and improve the chances of pollination. Scientists have shown that after a few days of secretion, so much protein-rich nectar is produced that it flows down into the base of the flower. Tuliptree is also a food plant for the caterpillars of the eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus).

Some years ago I wrote a story on urban beekeeping for Organic Gardening magazine, which has since been shut down. One of the beekeepers I interviewed, Linda Tillmann, seen in the story spread below, lives in Atlanta where the tree is a common forest species. As she told me: “In Atlanta bee season is limited by the tulip poplar bloom. Generally by the beginning of June our nectar flow is over, though bees also take nectar from holly, blackberry and others.”

*Photos of Linda Tillmann and her bees by Gregory Miller, Atlanta*

As the inflorescence ages and the central, spindle-shaped pistil elongates, the similarity to magnolias becomes even more obvious.

The leaves of tuliptree are unusually shaped – indeed, a little like the flowers of a stout tulip. Typically, they have four lobes, occasionally six. Lustrous and little bothered by insect predation or disease, they were praised by one of my favourite naturalists, Donald Culross Peattie in his book A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America. He wrote that there was something joyous :“in the fresh green of its leaves, which, being more or less pendulous on long slender stalks, are forever turning and rustling in the slightest breeze; this gives the tree an air of liveliness lightening its grandeur.”

In autumn, depending on conditions in the summer, tuliptree leaves turn gold, apricot or bronze….

…..and sometimes a mix of hues.

In early winter, you might see the aggregate winged fruits as they fall away from the central stalk. The seeds are eaten by birds and small animals. I will give my last words to Donald Peattie. “Even in winter the tree is still not unadorned, for the axis of the cone remains, candelabrum fashion, erect on the bare twig when all the seeds have fallen. No wonder that in the gardens of France and England this is one of the most popular of all American species.”

My Spring Nosegays

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Janet

According to etymology online, a “nosegay” was historically a “small bunch of flowers used to delight the sense of smell”. The word arose in the late 15^th century when ‘gay’ was a noun (now obsolete) meaning ‘a gay or bright thing’. Nosegays gave rise to the tussie-mussie, a handheld bouquet in an ornate, cone-shaped, metallic vase popular in late 19^th century Victorian times that became a kind of fashion accessory (plus mobile air freshener in those pre-deodorant days.) My spring nosegays are different from the summer bouquets I make at the cottage with my meadow flowers…..

…. or the bouquets I make for the living room mantel, like this one with boughs of cherry blossoms and peonies…..

….. or the ones I’d make in hollowed out cabbages and pumpkins! This was autumn 2002.

I think of my nosegays as tiny bouquets that indeed often delight my sense of smell, especially because the spring blossoms I include are often growing too low for me to bend in order to smell their perfume. That is definitely the case with fragrant snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), which I adorned with a small rhyme one spring after a long, snowy winter.

Snowdrops in a shot glass
How apt, I think.
I could get drunk in these
 tiny, nodding blossoms..
Savoring, after a long sober winter
The first intoxicating sip of spring

Snowdrops flower very early, often persisting under spring snow, along with crocuses, Iris ‘Katharine Hodgkin’ and fragrant viburnum (V. farreri), so they make lovely companions. This tiny bouquet from March 25^th this year had such a sweet scent. Speaking of ‘this year’, spring flowers emerged early, were buried in snow a few weeks later, and have enjoyed the cool temperatures, allowing them to last longer – something that doesn’t happen often in Toronto,

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There is such a delicacy about these early bloomers, best appreciated up close. I photographed this on April 19, 2020.

Way back on March 20, 2012, a record warm and early spring, I needed three little vases to showcase my spring bulbs. From left we have blue and white Siberian squill (S. siberica and S. siberica ‘Alba’) with glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii), Dutch hybrid crocuses (C. verna), and Greek windflower (Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’) with Corydalis solida ‘Beth Evans’.

This was April 6, 2020. I liked the little dash of orange from the Crocus x luteus ‘Golden Yellow’, along with the ice blue striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides), glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii), blue Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) and pink ‘Beth Evans’ corydalis (C. solida).

When the Dutch crocuses are at their prime, sometimes it’s fun just to showcase those silken purple petals. This was from April 12, 2014.

Similarly, I sometimes like to pick just one perfect spring bloom, like this Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’ on April 9, 2012, and give it the spotlight.

On April 23, 2013, I selected just a few stems of ‘Violet Beauty’ glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii) to photograph. Interestingly, this cultivar has not persisted in my garden, unlike the parent species.

We have a set of antique crystal shot glasses just the right size for a nosegay of spring bulbs. This was April 18, 2019, and featured the usual suspects.

Pastels flowering at the same time, on April 10, 2020, included light pink Viburnum farreri (which I blogged about recently), pink Corydalis solida ‘Beth Evans’ and ice-blue striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides).

These two little bulbs grow together in my garden and look just as lovely in a votive candle holder. Blue Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) and Corydalis solida ‘Beth Evans’. These would normally be finished by now, but our cool 2021 spring kept them in good shape for my April 25^th photo.

I adore grape hyacinths and wanted an early one in sky-blue. So last autumn I planted loads of Muscari aucheri ‘Ocean Blue’ and I am delighted. They’re at the front of this little nosegay, along with pure-white Narcissus ‘Thalia’, broad-leaved grape hyacinth (Muscari latifolium) with its navy-and-royal blue florets and Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’.

Last April 29th, I combined Muscari latifolium with the wonderful Tulipa praestans ‘Shogun’ and Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’.

Last week I plucked just a few flowers from my garden to place in my green Irish mug. Included were three daffodils, ‘Thalia’, ‘Stainless’ and little ‘Golden Echo’, which has become such a favourite that I wrote a blog in its honour. As well, I added a stem of peachy-orange Hyacinthus ‘Gipsy Queen’ which wafted its scent in my kitchen. Behind are two tulips, T. fosteriana ‘Orange Emperor’, left, and T. praestans ‘Shogun’, right.

This little nosegay had a bit of everything! It was May 4, 2020, so I was able to partner white Narcissus ‘Thalia’ with (clockwise from front) a sprig of blue Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) with a stem of magenta Rhododendron ‘PJM’ right behind it; lilac-purple Corydalis solida; Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’; broad-leaved grape hyacinth (Muscari latifolium); and wine-purple snakeshead fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris) at right.

I love bright, sunny colours and this little nosegay in a bud vase brightened up my kitchen on May 13, 2020. Along with spice-scented Narcissus ‘Geranium’, front, I used the orange, lily-flowered tulip ‘Ballerina’; Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’ (which lasts a long time because of its sequential blooming); and a few sprigs of forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica) and forsythia.

As May arrives, other parts of my garden wake up. Spring 2019 was quite cool, so the Greek windflowers (Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’) and Corydalis solida were still in flower when my masses of forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica) started flowering. I celebrated these “little blue flowers” on May 22, 2019, including common grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) and Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla).

One of my biggest garden problems here at home in Toronto is the steady advance of lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) through plantings. In my case, it was here when we bought our old house 38 years ago and my mistake, had I known what was coming, was not to eradicate it immediately. Now it is the tough groundcover for most of my front garden and a lot of the back. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to deter the native, prairie perennials that emerge through it for summer. I have had fun with lily-of-the valley, turning it into a fragrant chapeau for a garden party, which I detailed in a blog. And I also add a few stems to whatever is in bloom, including grape hyacinths, Siberian bugloss and forget-me-nots, like the nosegay below from May 22, 2020.

My lawn contains lots of native Confederate violet (Viola sororia var. priceana) and I’ve included them in the odd nosegay with forget-me-nots and grape hyacinths. This was April 22^nd in the record-warm spring of 2012.

In my final photo, made May 23, 2020, I’ve used the green shot glasses and flask from a vintage ‘gentleman’s travelling bar set’ that my late father-in-law gave my husband. Rather than whiskey, it includes the first perfumed blossoms of Burkwood’s viburnum (V. x burkwoodii) along with blue camassia (C. leichtlinii ‘Caerulea’), the final flowers of Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’, lily-of-the-valley, and common grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum). And that’s a wrap for my spring nosegays!

Celebrating Canada’s 150th at Ottawa’s Tulip Festival

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Janet

On July 1, 2017, Canada celebrates a big birthday – we turn 150! The Dominion of Canada was signed into being in 1867; we were only four provinces then: Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. A century-and-a-half later, we are 10 provinces and 3 territories. Our nationhood is acknowledged on the Centennial Flame that has burned in front of the parliament buildings in Ottawa since our centennial in 1967.

I was in Ottawa last week to visit friends and catch a little of the Canadian Tulip Festival. Though there weren’t many tulips at the Parliament Buildings, I did the requisite “lie flat on the grass and attempt to get both tulips & Peace Tower in the shot”.

And since a lovely flame-like tulip called ‘Canada 150’ was introduced this year to commemorate our birthday, I decided to put all the flames together and try to ignite a bonfire!

The weather was perfect and cool when we were there, though the normally dry trail below the Parliament Buildings flanking the Ottawa River was still under water from this spring’s historic flooding of the area.

We began our tulip quest at lovely Commissioners Park adjacent to Dow’s Lake, where the tulips were splendidly arrayed between the lake….

…. and a residential neighbourhood.

Everyone was trying their hand at photography…..

….including the serious shutterbugs….

….and those who still seem to have good knees!

Some were mastering the tulip selfie. Smile!

Double-flowered ‘Miranda’ was a big hit (if you like red tulips on steroids….)

‘Pretty Princess’ is a sport of old ‘Princes Irene’.

I liked this citrus-flavoured tulip mix.

‘Ottawa’ is just one of a number of tulips named for Canadian cities.

‘Calgary’ is a pure white Triumph tulip.

And I’m sure there’s a joke somewhere in ‘Double Toronto’, especially if you come from elsewhere in Canada. As in: “Q. Why are Toronto tulips double? A. Because they think they’re twice as good as the other cities.”

Truth be told, I’m not a big fan of massive blocks of tulips in one colour, whether it’s at the Keukenhof in the Netherlands or Ottawa. I do understand they attract crowds to public places, especially in a city that features winter for half the year. And as a stock photographer, I do love finding well-grown, labelled plants to shoot. However, as a tulip-lover, I’m partial to naturalistic designs incorporating them with perennials, as I illustrate in this video of my own front garden yesterday. But if I had to name a favourite planting at Commissioner’s, this would be the one – a big, happy circus of tulips.

There were more than just tulips in the park, like these lovely late daffodils….

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There is also a row of interpretive signs at Commissioners Park describing the origins of the Tulip Festival, the first 100,000 bulbs a gift from Princess Juliana and the Netherlands in dual gratitude to Canada for providing a safe haven for her during the 2^nd World War and also for liberating the country in spring 1945. The Netherlands royal family and Dutch bulb growers continue to send 10,000 bulbs to Canada each year.

On our second full day of three in Ottawa, we visited Major’s Hill Park, across from the beautiful, Moshe Safdie-designed National Gallery.

I loved this view of the Gallery’s atrium through elderberry flowers (Sambucus pubens).

This is the National Gallery entrance, from a previous visit.

And since we’re here, this is ‘Maman’ by the late French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), in tribute to her mother. At the time, in 2005, its $3.2 million price tag made it the most expensive artwork acquired by the gallery.

Behind ‘Maman’ is the Notre Dame Cathedral, with its twin spires that peek out over this cloud of serviceberry flowers (Amelanchier) from the park.

There were lots of tulip-lovers at this centrally-located site, which has a spectacular view of the Parliament Buildings and the Ottawa River….

…. and the Douglas Cardinal-designed Canadian Museum of History across the river in Gatineau, Quebec. Both the National Gallery landscape and the landscape of the Museum were designed by Vancouver’s renowned Cornelia Hahn Oberlander.

Little children ran around the brilliant tulips.

I have a special place in my heart for tulips that perform this brave task on behalf of misfits everywhere.

It was in Major’s Hill Park that I photographed the ‘Canada 150’ tulip…..

….with its white-edged leaves.

At the top of a rise, there’s a pretty tulip bed leading to the monument honouring Lieutenant-Colonel John By.

His statue looks out over the Ottawa River, which leads to the downtown locks and the Rideau Canal, his great engineering achievement on behalf of the British in the 1830s (and a fabulous winter skating rink for the people of Ottawa). His name is also memorialized in the nearby and fashionable Byward Market.

As the engineer in charge of this grand engineering project, By lived in a home on this site with a wonderful view of the river, Chaudières Falls and the Gatineau Hills. “Colonel By lived with his wife and two daughters in an ornate, cottage-style home. Visitors were charmed by the residence with its English gardens and surrounding pastures.” In 1848, long after he’d returned to England and the house was occupied by other officers, it was destroyed by fire, leaving the foundation cornerstones as part of a living museum here.

As my patriotic effort for this, our Sesquicentennial year I made a video of our Tulip Festival sojourn, complete with stirring national anthem soundtrack, followed by a lovely bit of music by an English composer named T.R.G. Banks, who generously makes his music available as public domain. Happy birthday, Canada. And many happy returns!

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

Tag Archives: tulip

Fairy Crown #5 – A Crabapple Requiem

Tuliptree – A Beautiful Forest Giant

My Spring Nosegays

Celebrating Canada’s 150th at Ottawa’s Tulip Festival

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