Winged Lilacs

American Lady butterfly

I was delighted, a few evenings back, to find my Korean lilac fittingly buried by gracefully-flitting brown-orange butterflies.  The lilac season in Kansas is already nearing its end, somewhat shockingly on this premature April date before they normally have even started blooming. Two different lilacs bring up the rear in my garden, the Syringa meyeri 'Dwarf Korean Lilac' pictured at the right, and the 'Josee' hybrid pictured below.

It is the Korean lilac that is the more fragrant of the two, and the American Lady butterflies (Vanessa virginiensis) were robbing it for nectar en masse, six or eight of them at a time.  The American Lady's are one of the Brush-footed butterfly families, and are of moderate size and, I would judge, merely moderate beauty as butterflies go.  I enjoy butterflies as a denizen of my garden, but I've never been as particularly fascinated or captured by them as I am, say, by rose varieties or bird species.  I've never made a concerted effort to be able to identify them on sight beyond the usual knowledge of when a butterfly might also be a swallowtail, or is instead a moth.  I can identify a Monarch, but I take no pride in that ability as I recognize that most young schoolchildren can identify Monarch butterflies due to the intense popular press the Monarch's enjoy.  Fly a few thousand miles as an extended family effort twice a year and it seems everyone thinks you're special.

My poor 'Josee' was neglected by the butterflies that evening, but I felt it was also making a special effort for my attention by showing off its subdued color hues against the variegated iris at its feet.  'Josee', as previously mentioned, may not be my most scented lilac, nor have the strongest coloration ('Yankee Doodle' has that distinction in my garden), nor does it have anything special like the picotee flowers of 'Sensation', but it does have one big advantage;  it was the first of the reblooming lilacs released and it really does, occasionally, dole out a panicle or two for my enjoyment in August.  Any lilac willing to defy its ancient nature to that degree for me will always have a place in my garden and my heart.

Lilac Weeks

Lilac 'Annabel'

It has been lilac time for about 3 weeks total around the place, with the 7 lilacs that surround my garage pad scenting the air now through the entire garden and other more peripheral lilacs in the garden starting to add  their fragrance.  I take full advantage of the lilac tolerance for the alkaline Flint Hills soil and the blistering Kansas winds.  My lilac year really began a few weeks back with soft-pink Annabel, a S. hyacinthiflora hybrid right next to the steps leading out to the back.  'Annabel' is very lady-like in form and never suckers. 

 

 Lilac 'Maiden's Blush'



The main flush of lilacs then follows, with my S. hyacinthiflora that isn't, 'Maiden's Blush' next. 'Maiden's Blush' should be a blush pink lilac, but looks closer to blue to my eyes, so I'm not sure that my bush was labeled correctly.  It has to be a hybrid of some sort, though, because it flowers much more delicately and prolifically than the species S. vulgaris next to it.

Lilac 'Sensation'

The Syringa vulgaris cultivars are next in line to bloom, with 'Nadezhda', picotee-form 'Sensation', 'Wonderblue', and, of course, 'Yankee Doodle' piping up in the mix.   The S. vulgaris types are all grouped into the "French" lilac category, and it for some reason tickles me that "French" and the species name vulgaris are tied together.  S. vulgaris is native to the Balkans, but the species became connected to the French by the breeder Victor Lemoine, whose over 100 cultivars from the late 1800's and early 1900's are known as  "French Lilacs".

 

Lilac 'Nadzehda'



Nadezhda' is a soft lilac-blue S. vulgaris bred in Russia. The name means "Hope," presumably in Russian or some dialect.  He was bred by Leonid Alekseevitch Kolesnikov, a WWII veteran in the years after the war, supposedly the best of the seedlings from this man who only wanted Moscow to be a peaceful city with streets decorated by lilacs.  'Nadezhda' is very hardy and disease resistant.

Lilac 'Wonderblue'

Soft powder-blue 'Wonderblue', also known as 'Little Boy Blue' is reputed to be the bluest of the lilacs and it certainly is in my garden.  Although it is hard for me to rate the intensity of scent of lilacs, since most of them overwhelm my nose, I'd have to say that 'Wonderblue' is also the strongest and sweetest scented of all my lilacs. I believe 'Wonderblue' has become my favorite.



 



  

Syringa vulgaris 'Yankee Doodle' is one of the darkest purples of all Lilacs and he shares the royal lineage of lilacs bred by Father John Fiala.  Fiala was an eminent scholar and plant breeder who produced a number of lilacs and crabapples and who literally wrote the encyclopedia on both species (Lilacs: The Genus Syringa and Flowering Crabapples: The Genus Malus were both authored by Fiala).  Unfortunately, be forewarned, if you google "Father John Fiala," you have to get past the news stories of a recent Catholic priest of that name who has been accused of rape and other indecencies.  'Yankee Doodle' has single florets of strong substance that persist a long time in the garden, particularly in the Kansas winds.

  

Lilac 'Josee'

Although I have a couple yet to bloom at all, including hybrid lilac 'Tinkerbelle', bringing up the rear right now is the first repeat-blooming lilac 'Josee', a three-way dwarf hybrid of S. meyeri, S. patula, and S. microphylla.  Unfortunately, pale-pink 'Josee', while beautiful, does not really rebloom in my garden.  Yes, you will see a few smaller florets pop up here and there throughout the summer, but they are sporadic and incidental in terms of garden impact, only good to allow the wistful gardener a chance to occasionally sample the scent of April in August.  I suppose that should be reward enough for growing her, but the gardener is ever demanding of his plants.

Easter Surprise

As Easter, 2011 finally arrives here in this slow-starting Spring, I've been given a present in the garden to watch over.   A white sport appeared on my 'Sensation' Lilac this year amidst all the deep purple, white-edged blossoms. This year, the Equinox Gods must be rewarding my earlier offerings to the start of Spring.

I appreciate the gift, but I would feel more special about it if a quick search didn't reveal that white sports from 'Sensation' are not especially rare.  There are several pictures of these sports on the Internet, and indeed, a webpage about plant sports by Professor Janna Beckerman from Purdue University's Plant Diagnostic Lab included a white 'Sensation' sport as a common example.

'Sensation' Lilac

'Sensation', for those gardeners who aren't familiar with it, is a popular lilac in commerce and in gardens because of the unique purple and white look to the blossoms that is commonly described as a "picotee."  Picotee is derived from the word "picot," which is a series of small embroidered loops forming an ornamental edging on some ribbon and lace, and the word "picotee" actually is defined as a carnation with pale petals bordered by a darker color.  'Sensation' then, I suppose, should be more accurately described as a reverse picotee.   'Sensation' also has nice heart-shaped foliage, but it is a rather stiff bush, growing 8-10 feet tall and wide, with strong, hearty branches that tend to be a little more sparse than most lilacs. To my amusement, 'Sensation' is labeled at many online nurseries as a "new" introduction, but it is actually an old lilac, introduced in 1938 by Eveleens Maarse.  According to Jennifer Bennett in her 2002 book Lilacs for the Garden, it was a genetic mutant of lavender-colored 'Hugo de Vries' that occurred when the Maarse greenhouse in Holland was forcing lilacs for Christmas. John Fiala, in Lilacs: A Gardener's Encyclopedia, lists it in a section with lilacs of "special and unique color classifications," and describes it as "outstandingly effective and unique."  Alongside the white sports, 'Sensation' has also been known to revert to the plain purple form resembling 'Hugo de Vries'.

For the scientifically-minded, the proper term for the mutation that led to 'Sensation' is a "periclinal chimera," which is a plant composed of cells of two distinct genotypes separated into distinctive zones.  Periclinal chimeras, as opposed to the other categories of chimera (mericlinal, and sectorial chimeras), are important because the mutations are stable and can be vegetatively propagated.  Thornless blackberries are perhaps the best known result from the formation of a periclinal chimera.  In the case of my white 'Sensation' sport then, the white flower genotype tissues have separated to give me a present.

Knowing all that, however, makes my own 'Sensation' sport no less of a miracle to me.  I'm going to watch it, and if it doesn't go through an ugly brown phase as so many white lilacs do when they fade, I'm going to try to propagate it.  Maybe someday I can have a part in releasing a lilac that will be named 'Easter Sensation.'

Shrubs for your Soul

For all those gardeners who haven't happened upon it, there is a new online gardening magazine titled Toil the Soil at BestGardenBlogs.com.  For the first (and free!) issue, I wrote an article in it about Plains-adapted flowering shrubs for MidWest gardeners titled "Shrubs for the Soul."  I thought I should post the text and some of the pictures here as well on my own blog, since the clickable pictures should be better quality here.  It may take a couple of parts:

Shrubs for the Soul:  Plains-adapted flowering shrubs for the winter-weary Midwestern gardener.
 

 Imagine that it is February 1st, 2011 and the biggest winter storm of the decade is throwing snow and ice at your windows and creating six foot high drifts around your shrub roses. You are a gardener in the Kansas Flint Hills who hasn’t seen a single sprig of green plant life for 2 months and your soul aches for any sight of a cheerful spring bloom. You are also an amateur writer who is trying to choose a topic for a new garden magazine and you’re under a short deadline. I’d be willing to bet my entire mail-order plant budget that eighty percent of you would choose, under those circumstances, to write about the spring-flowering shrubs that your heart pines for. The other twenty percent might write about either starting seeds indoors or about forcing spring bulbs, but I’m a conventional kind of guy, so I’ll stick with the cliché.

Here in the Flint Hills of Kansas, shrubs that can survive our cruel, arid Zone 5B winters, flower reliably in the soggy clay abetted by the April and May downpours, and then hold on steadfast through the hot dry summers, are indeed few and far between. Some spring shrubs counted on for the earliest displays in some regions of the country, such as the Witch Hazels (Hammelia sp.), need more acid soils to thrive than we can usually provide in the Flint Hills. I have, for instance, a specimen of ‘Jelena’ witchhazel in my garden and it is seen seldom enough in the area that most gardeners who visit either ask what it is or express surprise to see it. Those shrubs that do thrive in our soil and climate, however, are the pillars of Kansas gardener’s hopes in the Winter and provide the restoration of those gardeners’ souls each Spring. Eight intrepid shrubs that are well-equipped for the Kansas and Great Plains climate are:

  

'Meadowlark' Forsythia

Forsythia sp: Everyone with any gardening experience in the MidWest knows that Forsythia is going to be on this list, so we might as well get it over with early. Many varieties of Forsythia grow and perform very well here, and in fact, Manhattan, Kansas and the surrounding towns are pretty well covered in early April with the pastel combination of yellow Forsythia shrubs and pink Redbud trees. Some varieties of Forsythia can sustain damage from the more extreme winter temperatures of the Flint Hills, so it is useful to search out and plant the hardier varieties. Forsythia x int. ‘New Hampshire Gold’ (USDA Zone 4-8) is a mounding, arching shrub to about 5 feet tall that has reliably flowered every spring for ten years in my current garden. I tend to prefer the less brassy yellow tones of the newer Forsythia ovata ‘Meadowlark’, however. ‘Meadowlark’ has a taller and stiffer form to about 6 feet tall and the blossoms are much larger and showier than ‘New Hampshire Gold’. ‘Meadowlark’ was developed in a collaboration between the Arnold Arboretum and the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station and is widely proclaimed as the hardiest of the forsythias (Zone 3-8), with buds resistant to cold damage to -35®F. Variegated Forsythia varieties, such as ‘Fiesta’ are planted here in hopes of a better display in the off-flower seasons, but they often suffer damage when fully exposed to the hot prairie sun and buds are not as reliably cold-hardy as the varieties previously mentioned.

Magnolia stellata

Magnolia stellata: One of the earliest flowering shrubs in my garden is Magnolia stellata, the Star Magnolia. I know that some gardeners in other zones or climates might think of this magnolia as a tree, but it definitely remains shrub-sized everywhere I’ve seen it in Zone 5. . I have cultivar ‘Royal Star’ which grows to around 10 feet, but other larger M. stellata cultivars are also available. But, regardless of ultimate size, this beauty is a god-send for early fragrance. I’ve never been particularly excited about the smallish 3-inch white blossoms against the bare branches, not like I am with some of the larger and more colorful magnolias, but the Star magnolia more than makes up for it in scent production. The survival of this one has encouraged me to try a few other of the hardier magnolias, including ‘Jane’, one of the “Little Girl” hybrids from the U.S. National Arboretum, and Magnolia acuminata ‘Yellow Bird’, a recent introduction from Monrovia. Both are reportedly hardy to at least Zone 5 but they are too young to be certain performers in my garden.

Syringa sp: Lilacs of all species and types are well-adapted to the alkaline soils of the Kansas Flint Hills and are cold-hardy far beyond our region. They bloom early in April in Zone 5, and sometimes the earlier blooming cultivars can be burned by a late frost or even dusted with snow. Although the hundreds of Syringa vulgaris cultivars all do well,  Korean lilacs and newer cultivars such as ‘Josee’ also thrive in the Kansas sunshine.  And the scent!  What would the scent of a Kansas spring be without Lilacs? 



Lilacs 'Wonderblue', 'Yankee Doodle', and 'Annabelle', left to right

the next week or so, I'll post the rest of the article, including a discussion of honeysuckles, viburnums (yes, in full sun!) and mockoranges.  But not right away, because I've got other things to touch on first!

Just Cut It Out

I must admit there are times, even though I'm a plant fanatic first and a garden designer second (or, truthfully, last), that I am forced to see the folly of my ways and can even grow to hate a given plant. I don't often hate the plant for being a bad plant, mind, I usually just hate a specific specimen because of my own error of putting it in the wrong place or underestimating its ultimate size or for not providing the proper maintenance, or some combination of all of the above.

At such times, the longer I garden, the more willing I am to face facts and sever the apron strings; or in this case, the plant's stem.  Look if you will at the 'Josee' lilac (Syringa x 'Josee') in my front garden (arrows).  Now five years old, it has grown far bigger than the tag suggested, it obscures a window, and it is out of proportion with the rest of the front shrubs and perennials.  I tried cutting it back severely once, but a year later it is right back where we started; too big. To make my distaste for this plant worse, although I planted two of these beauties because they were the only reblooming lilac on the market (one in this bed and one in back of the house), neither has rebloomed well;  they do have a nice bloom in the spring towards the end of the period of the S. vulgaris hybrids, but then they have only a few sporadic small blooms over the summer and fall.  Now I could be partially to blame for that problem since the front bed of my house faces almost due north and so this particular lilac gets too much shade except in the summer, but the specimen I planted out back doesn't bloom any better and it gets southern exposure, full-day Kansas summer sun. 

So, on my list of things to get done this fall, I included banishing this lilac to a far bed on the property, perhaps never to be seen from again if it doesn't survive the move.  As you can see in the second picture, my front garden benefited tremendously from not having this behemoth squatting and pouting in the shade, and you can now see the house has a third nice window on that side.  And I'm happy, oh so happy, to be rid of that display of my horticultural ignorance. 

Sometimes I think I just need to let my surgeon side shine through more in the garden.  Amputation or excision is almost always the best first choice for treating a cancer and I know that, at least on a professional level.  Remove the tumor, cleanse the soul.