Yellow Bird Magnolia

My "most awaited newcomer" has been teasing me for over a week now by performing a slow strip-tease, sepal by sepal, to expose her inner beauty.  And here it is, my much anticipated Magnolia acuminata 'Yellow Bird'.  Isn't she a beaut?  

Last year I attended a seminar at a locally-owned nursery, Blueville Nursery, which offered a 20% discount that night for EMG purchases and this small 3-foot specimen grabbed my eye.  Although a bit pricey, she screamed "but I'm 20% off!" at me and I took her home.  I've been stretching into the Magnolias over the past few years and I'd been looking for a yellow magnolia, perhaps Magnolia acuminata X M. denudata 'Butterflies', to become the third magnolia experiment in my garden.  I'd seen 'Butterflies' at another local nursery as a full-grown specimen and it is impressive when it wasn't frost damaged, but the yellow of 'Butterflies' is much paler than the single bloom that was present on 'Yellow Bird' when I bought it, so 'Yellow Bird' became my girl.

Now that she is blooming, I think 'Yellow Bird' is one of the most aptly-named plants I've ever seen.  Across the garden, even my small specimen looks like there are 8 or 10 canaries perched on the little tree, the 3 1/2 inch flowers exactly the right yellow to stand out from the surroundings.  'Yellow Bird' was bred in 1967 and is a 1981 Brooklyn Botanic Garden introduction that is hardy from zone 5-9.  She seems to have opened a week or two later than both my M. stellata and my 'Jane' magnolia, so I hope that she will give me a reliable bloom here in Zone 5b, unaccompanied by late frost damage in most years that we see on some magnolias here.  Certainly, she has survived her first year here, a dry winter, with "flying colors" (please pardon the pun, couldn't resist).  'Yellow Bird' has a substantial pedigree, descending from a cross between the American native Magnolia acuminata and the Chinese Magnolia lilliflora and then recrossed as an early Brooklynensis, Magnolia 'Evamaria' with M. I. subcordata.  In fact, some sources drop the Magnolia acuminata designation and simply list it as Magnolia x brooklynensis 'Yellow Bird'.  A mongrel she may be, but the intercontinental crosses have resulted in an exceptional and hardy beauty.  

I see that Monrovia has recommended 'Yellow Bird' paired with 'Blue Moon' Wisteria macrostachya.  As one of my wisterias is beginning blooming at another part of the garden, I can imagine how the blue-purple wisteria would climb up into 'Yellow Bird' and capture your soul.  I'm not about to chance this specimen to the choking vines of wisteria, though, so perhaps I'll have to justify another specimen in the garden somewhere.  Unlike the description on one website which stated that the flowers appear after the leaves and so can be lost amid them, , my 'Yellow Bird' has blooms only at this time, and the leaves are just beginning to open.  The same website also stated that it doesn't like dry conditions, that it likes acid soils, and that it might live only 8-10 years, so I hope that site is wrong on these latter counts as well.  Time will reveal the truth.

'Yellow Bird' is supposed to grow 35-40 feet fall and 25 feet wide at maturity, so I can't imagine what a specimen she is going to make in my garden when she reaches full growth.  She is labeled as a fast grower, so if I have some luck and practice good nutrition, and exercise, I might have a chance to live to see this tree fully grown someday, a little gem elevated into eye-popping maturity.

A Peachy Red

For me, warnings of the onset of Spring are manifest in the witch hazels, the daffodils, the minor bulbs, and the redbuds, but I finally feel Spring each year in my heart when my ornamental Double-flowering Red Peach (Prunus persica 'Rubroplena') blooms.

The red-blooming peach was introduced to Europe in 1840.  I first saw one over a decade ago when I saw one planted in a display garden at a local nursery (Lee Creek Garden).  A few years later I stumbled across a small 3 foot specimen at Lowes for the outrageous price of $50.00 and, of course, purchased it immediately and planted it in a prominent landscape spot.  Today, it stands about 12 feet tall and 10 feet across, blooming only for a short time, but, Oh what a display it makes!  Every year, it has made a good excuse to get my daughter to pose with her Italian Greyhound in front of it during bloom; the blooming of the growing teenager a foreground to the blooming and growing of the tree over a decade.

My 'Rubroplena' started to bloom just 2 days ago and was fully open last night.  Although Internet references report that this tree is "long-blooming" for 2 weeks, I've always found the blooms fleeting and with the wind of last night's onrushing storm already knocking off blossoms to the ground, I quickly snapped this year's picture.  Blown up, it is just blurry enough that you can see the wind was moving it even during the photo, but for overall landscape value, this tree is a peach.

I've learned that in purchasing 'Rubroplena', I may have purchased the plainest red peach on the market and that there are other named varieties out there.  'Late Red' sounds like a good one for those in Zone 6 or higher to avoid late freezes, and 'Red Baron' is a double-blooming variety that is supposed to also provide edible peaches, unlike my 'Rubroplena' whose peaches are small, hard, and bitter.  Even harder to resist is finding that there is a weeping double red flowering peach tree on the market, but again, it is only recommended for Zone 6 or above so I think I can resist the temptation to throw money and plant tissue down the drain in a fruitless effort.  I fear I'm about to begin a search, however, for a commercial source of a cultivar named 'Versicolor', which supposedly bears semi-double white and red-striped flowers on the same tree.  Zone-hardiness doesn't count when a quest of such beauty commences.

For those who would like to try 'Rubroplena', it seems to be perfectly hardy here in Zone 5B and it has never missed a bloom despite freeze or frost.  Calling it "red" is really a bit of a stretch as I would have called it more of a deep pink, but there is no reason to disparage the blooms for our color mischaracterizations.  Leaf curl doesn't seem to affect it, at least to a noticeable degree, and thus I don't spray this tree when I spray "the eating" peaches.  I have trimmed it only to shape the tree and keep it from rubbing against the house.  If it has a drawback, it is that the hard fruits drop off in late fall and early spring and may be a bit dangerous to foot traffic if placed near a walkway.  I ignore the fruits entirely, but it is possible the birds enjoy them because I now have another 'Rubroplena' that sprouted on its own over 200 feet from the first.  Of course, I kept the gift from the sky and planted another garden bed around it. 

The Gardening Infection

A Gardenweb.com posting yesterday tickled my fancy bone and started me down a memory path thinking about forks taken and not taken.  A GardenWeb member from the UK named "campanula" wrote about her online search for small gardening tools for a granddaughter and, noting that she herself had come late to gardening, asked "how many of you have handed gardening skills on to your children?"  She then made the statement that jumped straight into my brain; "It seems the gardening infection can strike at any time or any age, but, no time wasting for this coming generation, who will have a trowel in her hands as soon as they can hold one."

"The Gardening Infection."  What a delightful way of phrasing the desire that all gardeners have for their children.  I have a son and daughter, both now nearly fully grown and currently non-gardeners, but both dabbled in the garden with me when they were younger, and I have hope that they will return to it when they need that piece (or peace?) in their lives.  Some of my favorite pictures, taken candidly by my stealthy wife, are of my daughter picking beans with me in the garden and wearing goggles to protect her almost 4 year old eyes from flying gnats.  The smile on her face alone evokes the moment for me.  Not the greatest quality, taken with an early digital camera, and the beans are showing the wear and tear of insect damage (and where did all the weedy grass come from?), but the grainy pictures are eternally precious to me nonetheless. 

Like Campanula, I came late to gardening, having only some amusement at a father who fussed over flowers and vegetables, and as a result of my teen self viewing the garden merely as a source of hot sweaty labor tasks imposed by that father.  As a child, I hoed, mowed, and occasionally wrestled with a monstrous tiller that had all the ergonomics of a cement block (for more on "The Tiller", see my book), and I would have bet good money during my late teens, and lost, against finding myself a gardener now. I must have been exposed long enough to become "infected by gardening," however.  Either that or the latent genes of my farming grandparents came through.

I've always felt with some guilt that I was slightly remiss in not making my children do more gardening with me.  I occasionally offered both children the chance for their own rows in the garden and they both mowed occasionally, but, in truth, I didn't want to see them do "menial" tasks or to hear me complain, after they worked in the hot sun, that they had wiped out half a row of corn with the hoe or pulled the peppers up instead of the weeds.  So I don't know if they'll become garden infected, but I occasionally see hope.  Just the other night, when we found my neighbor's horses had escaped into our back yard, my daughter hollered "I see them, they're by the honeysuckle."  I couldn't help but take heart that she knows still where the honeysuckle lives.  And I've seen signs that my son will only need a place of his own, like I did, before the infection becomes a terminal illness.   

So thank you, Campanula, for fertilizing my hope.  Gertrude Jekyll once said "The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies," and I hope she was right, whether the gardening seed is genetic or infectious or learned.  In the end, I wish nothing better for my children than that they someday know the simple elegance of good soil, the wonder of growing life, and the quiet strength of time spent in the garden with God.

Iris Perfection

The longer I garden, the more I appreciate and propagate Iris pallida 'Variegata' throughout my garden.  I've got a clump or two in almost every bed already, and I'm thinking about trying its effect in a single massed area, a shrine to spiky leaves of gold and green.

I obtained this iris somewhat by accident in 1999, not knowing then the treasure that I had purchased, but thinking the variegated leaves would stand out nicely against a darker green background. I'm sure I purchased it by its alternate name 'Aurea Variegata'; a name more descriptive of the creamy golden stripes. If you grow this iris though, you know that the variegation is only the beginning of the possibilities it offers.  A gardener should never place this iris against an oppressing opaque background.  The real gift is hidden until one views it placed in an elevated circumstance, at eye level, where the sun can shine behind those gorgeous spring leaves.  The picture at left, taken yesterday evening as the sun was fading, is only a small sampling of the beauty of the backlit foliage.

I'm ashamed to admit that I've never taken a picture of the light blue flower with its lilac tones and yellow beard, but I'll make sure to correct that this year.  Then again, this is not some fabulous modern hybrid with striking colors screaming "look at me."  No, this iris hides behind its plain appearance during bloom, holding the unsuspecting gardener at arms length.  It belongs, as I said, at eye level though.  If you don't examine this flower closely, you may never realize that it is deliciously scented with what I would describe as a sweet licorice odor.  "Sweet Iris" is another name for Iris pallida that perhaps fits better to those who know it for its fragrance.  A classic triple gardening threat, Iris pallida variegata; wonderfully scented, beautiful form as an accent, and the ability to pop out and be a specimen plant if placed correctly.

The names given this species seem to be as endless as its origins.  While searching out the native range of this plant, I came across references to it as a Mediterranean native, a native of the Southern Alps, and yet another article that referred to it as the "Dalmation Iris", so named because it is native to the Dalmatia province of Croatia.  In truth, this Zone 4 hardy plant is so easy to grow and undemanding of soil and water, that it has probably naturalized most everywhere that man and beast have taken it.  It is cultivated as a source of orris root, the essential oils extracted from the rhizome by drying, grinding, rewetting the powder, and distilling.  Said to smell like violets, orris root extract is also described as having a flavor identical to raspberries.

As for me, I ain't eatin' it, but I'm happy to view it morning and evening and sample its perfume during the brief season of flowers.  And I'll grow Iris pallida 'Variegata' forever in my garden.