April in March – Magnolias on Parade

By now, everyone who pays attention to plants in our area has been overwhelmed with early-spring-itis in their gardens. The little daffodils and hellebores bloomed way ahead of schedule. The Okame cherry trees started showing their flowers in February, for pity’s sake, and the Yoshino cherries around the Tidal Basin and elsewhere are at their peak right now. Forsythia, tulips and even some allium foliage are working it. Climate change seems here to stay.

Some of the showiest spring-flowering trees around here are the deciduous magnolias: Magnolia x soulangiana (Saucer magnolia), M. stellata (Star magnolia), and a group called the ‘Little Girl Hybrids.’ Let’s start with M. soulangiana, which in fact was the first tree I learned to identify in my “woody plants” class in design school.

Saucer magnolias have an open, multi-trunk habit. In bloom, they are breathtaking.

Saucer magnolias usually bloom here in early April. Their flowers look like tulips, at least to me; they do best planted in full sun and good drainage. My woody plants teacher recommended that we always plant them in other than south-facing sites because of the risk of warm late winter weather causing them to bud early, only to get caught by a late freeze, resulting in brown mush all over the branches where beautiful flowers should have appeared.

A mass of blooms on a pink Magnolia soulangiana.

And again.

Next there are the star magnolias, which tend to be a little smaller than the saucer magnolias once fully grown. They have strap-like blooms and most varieties have white flowers. I grow ‘Royal Star’ in my garden, a white cultivar. This specimen, which I photographed last week in Northwest Washington DC, looks very much like mine.

Star magnolias stay somewhat more compact and won't grow as large as the saucer magnolias.

Then there are the’Little Girl Hybrids,’ bred at the National Arboretum to bloom even later than M. stellata, and bearing names like ‘Betty,’ ‘Ann,’ ‘Susan,’ ‘Jane’ and ‘Judy.’ Here’s a pair of ‘Betty’ magnolias that I planted in a client’s garden about ten years ago. I think the size is ideal for a smaller site.

These 'Little Girl Hydbrid' magnolias are the variety 'Betty.' (Taken with my iPhone 4).

On the whole, these trees have beautiful gray bark and root systems that don’t like being messed with. If you plant them, give them time to grow but realize that you won’t be able to grow much under them but groundcovers. Still, it’s probably worth the sacrifice.

Everyday Paris

No gardens here. No glamour shots of the Eiffel Tower or other readily recognizable “must see” sights, other than some architectural shots I couldn’t resist. Just a few of my favorite images from my August trip to Paris to warm up your winter week. Hope you enjoy them.

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Winter Jasmine for the Cold Weather Garden

How many plants do you know that bloom in the winter? Hellebores, yes. Witchhazels, ditto. Snowdrops, depending on how mild the winter is. Today’s post, however, is in praise of Jasminum nudiflorum, or winter jasmine.

Jasminum nudiflorum gracing a brick wall at Dumbarton Oaks (near the Rose Garden)

I first understood the allure of this arching, trailing shrub when I saw it in bloom at Dumbarton Oaks, early on in my education as a gardener.  I mean, how beautiful is that?

There are other locations at Dumbarton where the visitor comes across it, although not necessarily as dramatically placed.

Growing through a stone "lattice" wall in another part of Beatrix Farrand's masterpiece.

Behind the library, overlooking the grass steps.

Winter jasmine’s period of bloom is roughly six to eight weeks long, a real plus for color-starved eyes in winter. However, the flowers don’t appear all at once. They open sporadically, which means that the effect can be less than spectacular. Best performance is in full-sun sites.

According to one of my favorite garden publications, The Avant Gardener (don’t look for a website, it doesn’t have one), winter jasmine will spread up to 10 to 15′ wide and grow 2-3′ high. It’s hardy down to Zone 6 and supposed can be cut back to about 12″ high occasionally, to promote strong growth.

Even during the spring, summer and fall, however, winter jasmine is a good choice for spilling over stone walls in the landscape. The new shoots are green, and the foliage is delicate in appearance. Here it is in a Chevy Chase client’s garden last June.

Winter jasmine looks good year-round.

As you can see from this photo, a happy specimen of this plant will just keep growing . . . and growing . . . and growing. (This, of course, makes it a great choice for planting on sunny slopes – it may not be evergreen but since its shoots are green in winter, the ground won’t look bare.) So if there is soil at the bottom of the wall where you plant it, and you don’t want it to root there, a little maintenance will be necessary.  Otherwise, sit back and enjoy it.

Lighting Up the Garden

My new 'Glowing Embers' Japanese maple uplit in snow.

This is my new screensaver, at least until spring arrives. I took this photo (a 15-second exposure, on a tripod) the other night when we had an unexpected, very tiny snowstorm. I liked the photo so much that I posted it to Facebook and wrote, “Snow + up-lit Japanese Maple = magic. Takes some of the sting out of losing my beautiful crabapple.” Later the image was re-pinned on Pinterest to a “Just a little magical” board. Magic, indeed.

Garden lighting is often thought of as an extravagance, an “extra” that you’ll get around to – someday. But I’ve concluded that it’s one of the most worthwhile investments you can make, to dress up even a new landscape, in terms of bang for the buck. My own front yard is a good example. I had to spend a lot of money this year taking down and replacing two trees,including getting the tree stumps ground out, and replanting one bed area around the new ‘Riversii’ beech. I may have to spend more this coming year because I suddenly have a sunny exposure where I had shade before, and I don’t know which of my current plantings will survive.

It broke my heart to see how small my new trees were when they went in, and how dark the front yard seemed at night. The old trees, you see, had been uplit beautifully.

The branches of my old American beech tree uplit at night.

Without the lighting, the front of the house looked bleak and sad at night, with the only lights on my steps and two carriage light fixtures on either side of the front door. So I bit the bullet and had lighting installed on the ‘Riversii’ and the new Japanese maple by my go-to lighting contractors, Outdoor Illumination Inc. Neither tree is large, but the difference the lighting makes to the house and landscape is amazing.

Lighting can be used not only for trees but to draw your eye to other built elements in the garden, such as these wooden Nepalese screens one of my clients installed as a kind of sculpture.

Three wooden panels surround a young copper beech in a garden in Chevy Chase, Maryland, uplit by soft spots.

Behind this screen is an up-lit Magnolia 'Leonard Messel'

In a more modern landscape setting, you’ll see lights used around pool perimeters, as here in this Potomac, Maryland garden designed by landscape architect H. Paul Davis.

Spotlights for the pool jets as well as the hornbeams and river birches adjacent to the water area create a beautiful effect as dusk descends.

But even away from paths and major trees, lighting in the garden can contribute to an atmosphere of calm and magic.

As evening approaches, a garden bed with color fall foliage is illuminated, bringing the outside in for a little longer.

So consider some “night lights” if you’re working on improvements to your garden. You won’t regret it.

My Determined Daphne

About ten years ago, when I redesigned my front yard, I planted a winter daphne (Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’) in front of the seating area under my now-departed crabapple tree.

Visible just behind the weeping yew in the front of the photo, my daphne has persevered through all kinds of weather, including snow in April 2007.

I planted it because I had a shady front yard, a high-profile location I wanted to fill with a specimen plant, and most of all because I loved the way this plant smells when it’s in bloom, usually in late March or early April. Heavenly.

What I didn’t know at the time was that very few daphnes grow to maturity looking like the one in the link here. Many, if not all, of the ones I’ve planted or encountered, develop a strange tendency to start growing horizontally. Mine is so “sideways” now that much of its “trunk” lies on the ground, and most of the foliage branches are propped up on the flagstone landing in front of the bed. Recently, a deer (I think) stepped on it in the center, breaking off a big chunk of the shrub.

Ouch. Whatever roundish shape the daphne had before has been severely compromised, to say the least.

I winced and cut off the broken branch, then tried an experiment to see if I could “force” cuttings from the broken piece to bloom inside. No luck, as you can see.

This is as good as it got. A couple of days later, the leaves started yellowing and falling off, while the buds stayed determinedly shut.

Over the years, as my daphne has gotten older, harsh winters have made me think it’s about to give up the ghost.

In a real snowstorm, shortly after it was planted. Plucky little thing.

But to my surprise, when bloom time comes, in late winter, it perks up and lets forth with its gorgeous scent, determined to give me another season of bloom.

My daphne's buds, starting to open.

Now that my front yard is sunnier, I don’t know if the daphne will survive the sun’s onslaught.

No longer sheltered by the crabapple's branches, the daphne will now get strong sun in the front yard, even though it faces north.

Check with me this time next year. I would hate to have to move it, but if it proves necessary, I’ll try transplanting it, broken branch and all.  After all, it’s surprised me before with its determination to survive. Perhaps it will do so again. Fingers crossed.

American University’s Arboretum

Not far from where I live, in northwest Washington DC, American University has been establishing an arboretum on its campus that provides student, faculty and visitors with a garden-like setting to enjoy and take pride in. I’ve been photographing the campus for its landscape architect, H. Paul Davis (who also has designed many beautiful residential gardens in the DC area) since 2004, and thought I would share some photos with you.

While the original campus plan for AU (which was founded in 1893) was created by Frederick Law Olmstead Sr., it underwent changes over the years. These days, Olmstead’s plan is being revisited, but some of the most visually exciting areas of AU’s landscape are directly attributable to Davis’ vision.

The University's Katzen Center, with sculpture and plantings.

Another view of the Katzen Center "garden."

Older parts of campus include mature trees and a wandering brook,

Azaleas and a brook near the Woods-Brown Ampitheater at AU.

a “pocket park” with unusual perennials and a Japanese maple with benches inviting you to sit and talk,

Roper Pocket Park, with a naturalized pond and seasonal plantings.

and large expanses of lushly planted sweeps of colorful long-flowering perennials in front of the President’s House and neighboring Glover Gate.

The lawn at the President's house, near Glover Gate.

A mass of bold summer annuals and grasses capture the eye at Glover Gate.

In spring, I found Euphorbia paired with luscious yellow and white tulips along a walkway between buildings.

Euphorbia and yellow and white tulips provide a gorgeous spring combination.

The landscape design around academic buildings is impressive almost everywhere.

Hillside plantings behind a Batelle-Thompkins building, not far from Glover Gate.

A late summer afternoon in front of Battelle-Tompkins, with a Natchez crape myrtle in bloom and masses of coneflowers, shasta daisies and black-eyed susans.

In 2010, the plantings surrounding Battelle-Thompkins earned Davis and AU a Landscape Design Merit Award from the Perennial Plant Association.

AU’s arboretum is not only visually beautiful but is becoming a leader in sustainable management of an urban landscape. Its new LEED Gold Certified School of International Service building showcases a host of new green technologies, and the campus’s Media Production Center boasts a green roof. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll take a tour of the campus – even if you’re not in the market for a return to academia yourself, it’s inspirational and an opportunity for learning more about how an institute of higher learning has something to teach us all.

The Vale of the White Horse

In August I encountered one of the most mysterious landscapes I have ever seen – the Vale of the White Horse in Uffington, in Oxfordshire, England.  Although the Vale itself is fairly typical looking, with hedges delineating individual farms and holdings,

The Vale of the White Horse, as seen from an outlook near the White Horse.

it is the White Horse itself that makes this destination so special.

The White Horse, viewed from below. It's much easier to photograph from an aerial perspective, but I had failed to book a helicopter.

The White Horse is described in Wikipedia as a “highly stylized prehistoric hill figure”, created of chalk (it is estimated) during the Bronze Age some 3000 years ago. (For a better aerial view of it, click here.) The figure is about 375 feet long and is cleaned periodically to keep it visible. The surrounding landscape contains some unusual ridged hills called The Giant’s Stair, and above the White Horse stands a knoll known as the Iron Age Uffington Castle.

The day we visited, the landscape was windy and clouds scuttered across the sky. A child was running with a kite.

Flying a kite below the White Horse

The surrounding meadows were appropriately bleak, with an occasional outcropping of thistles.

Purple thistles dotting the meadow grass near the Vale of the White Horse.

I won’t forget the Vale of the White Horse. See it if you can.