Redbud Respect

ProfessorRoush, is appreciating the multiple Eastern Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) that are this year, if ever-so-briefly, the shining jewels of my world, focal spots of happiness who seldom get the recognition they deserve in the landscape or in print.  In fact, I am taking special notice of redbuds popping, intentionally planted and wild, all over town, bright pink-red blooms beating the crabapples and Bradford pears into bloom and stealing the spotlight from the sparse lime-green Spring foliage of other trees.  Soon, they will fade into the background, underappreciated understory trees lost among their distant lignacious cousins.  

A prominent specimen in my yard, pictured at the left, was a volunteer in my back landscape bed which I have allowed to remain in its self-chosen spot and nurtured to adolescence.  In fact, "nursed" might be a more accurate term than "nurtured", as this tree split into two during a violent windstorm several years back and I braced and bandaged and pruned and healed it to its current form.  Among the many storied uses of Duct Tape, I can add "tree bandage" to the list from personal experience.

Of the 7 or 8 redbuds in my yard, only one was intentionally planted, the aging specimen pictured here at the right, the favorite tree of Mrs. ProfessorRoush and planted just outside the laundry room window. Viewed from the road in front of the house, it frames the right side of the driveway and decorates and anchors the house.  Seen "down the hill" and into the garden, it serves as a complimentary backdrop to the floriferous 'Annabelle' lilac terraced below it, the latter the first of my lilacs to bloom.

 

I have noticed the redbuds especially this year because the fickle Kansas weather preempted and eliminated last year's bloom with a miserably-timed freeze, a not-so-uncommon occurrence that happens here, according to my notes, about one year in five.   A redbud-less Spring is, I can confirm, intensely discouraging, and similarly disheartening in spirit as other dysfunctions of daily life.  Such a depressing interruption of our annual cycle drowns our spirits in disappointment (some choose drowning their disappointment in spirits) while we attempt to sustain some minor hope for the best for next year.  Sine qua non, while the late night television lineup seems packed with commercials of remedies for erectile dysfunction (which it demurely refers to as "ED"), there is no known cure for gardeners who suffer from RD (redbud dysfunction). 

My notes also tell me that the redbuds are blooming early this year, a full 10 days ahead of their average peak.  I originally thought it was a late Spring, but while some species are blooming later than normal (Scilla, daffodils), others seem to be early.  Perhaps the long cold Winter and sudden, extended, warm period in mid-March has compressed the season. Some species and accurate dates, sadly, are often respectively missing or suspect as I am prone to only note early blooming species and choose those notations by whim. And consistently, by late April I fade away and stop recording.  So some years I mention the first blooms of some species and other years I don't record them but have notes of other flowers.   A better system might be to take notes of blooming plants on specific days; the 1st, 5th, 10th, etc. of each month, for example, which might improve accuracy and consistency.

The last two photos here reflect the remaining redbuds in my garden.   On the annual Manhattan Area Garden Tour a decade back, I noted that one homeowner had created a "grove" of redbuds.   Intrigued by the idea, I have collected, over several years, a half-dozen of volunteer redbud seedlings from their birth sites and replanted them beneath a Cottonwood tree at the back of the yard.   Here around the solid garden bench and protected by the Cottonwood, some have grown enough to be noticeable at bloom, and in 5-10 years, I expect this to be a wondrous focal point, full of mystery and life and Spring fairies each year.