Argh!!! I only just now realized that, contrary to what I’m typing and seeing on the screen in the “Add New Post” part of my dashboard here, wordpress or at least the theme I’m using in wordpress is automatically capitalizing each word of the titles of my posts. This sucks, as I have been carefully putting in the scientific names with the binomial nomenclature properly done: genus capitalized, species in lower case. So do I rename all of the posts? Sigh.
Franklinia alatamaha January 10, 2010
Franklinia alatamaha: We were able to get our hands on a Franklin tree at the OSU Chadwick Arboretum auction in May of 2009. Also known as the ”lost Camellia” or the” lost Gordonia”, the history of this tree is as intriguing as the tree itself! Apparently, back in 1765, colonial naturalist John Bartram found a stand of these trees in the wild somewhere in Georgia. He named the tree after his good buddy Benjamin Franklin, collected samples, and sent the samples and seeds back to the Bartram family residence in Philadelphia. The trees have never been found in the wild again. Just poof! Vanished. All existing trees have been propagated from those samples gathered by Bartram back in 1765. Which is really pretty crazy and mind-blowing. It also makes the trees kind of delicate (not enough genetic variation I suppose) and rare.
And we have one. Hooray! It even bloomed for us, very pretty. I’m really, really, really hoping it will live. Supposedly, once established, it’ll have bright red fall foliage, and sometimes it will still be flowering with its lovely creamy white camellia-esque blooms at the same time it is showing its fall colors. Too cool.
Big Projects of 2009: part 1 January 10, 2010
My husband tackled some big projects in the yard in 2009. First up was removing the ginormous forsythia in the front yard. It was one of the few plants that was already in the yard when we bought our house. Although undeniably striking while in bloom (practically like a second sun!) it was not the plant we wanted in the space that it occupied. My husband gave it hard prune in 2008, but it was so well established that it was back to its full size by the end of the same summer. We decided that what we really wanted in that spot was the Japanese tree lilac my mom gave us. So Keith toiled, dug, hacked and hauled that old forsythia out of its spot.
There is a happy ending for the forsythia, though: we took one of the huge root globs and gave it to my parents. They planted it and I’m pleased to report that by the end of the summer a nice little forsythia bush had sprouted from it. The tree lilac is a seedling from a massive one from my parents’ back yard, and it seemed a bit shocked but mostly okay…we’ll see in the spring!
Forsythia madness January 10, 2010
I’m posing by the forsythia back in 2006. Keith is with it in either 2007 or 2008, not completely sure. This forsythia was one of the few plants originally in our yard when we bought the house. It was huge and kind of crazy, and became the object of one of my husband’s projects during 2009.
Cercis canadensis ‘Lavender Twist’ January 10, 2010
Cercis canadensis ‘Lavender Twist’: Back in the fall of ’08, we got totally lucky at the Keller Farms season-end plant sale. We purchased a lovely Lavender Twist weeping redbud tree, for the bargain-basement price of $58. Such a deal!!! We saw some at the Clintoville Oakland Nursery during the ’09 season for over $200 a piece, so score. It is a wonderful tree so far, and my only regret is that we didn’t buy two. 
It is a rare-ish cultivar, although it is becoming more and more readily available. Compact and lovely, it tops out at 8 feet tall. It adds interest year-round (IMHO): blooming in spring, pretty heart-shaped leaves spring/summer, yellow leaves and interesting seed pods in the fall, and the interesting contorted weeping form of the tree gives great winter interest, too. Here are some pics of ours:
Paeonia ‘Paree Fru Fru’ January 10, 2010
Here is the Paree Fru Fru peony that we have. It did better this summer (’09) so I think maybe the trouble was not that I planted it too deep back in 2006 like I initially worried but rather that it has just taken some time to get established. Not mad blooms like the Pink Spritzer, but coming along and totally worth the wait, look:
Paeonia ‘Pink Spritzer’ January 10, 2010
Browsing through some of my 2009 garden photos, I was happy to see that I had actually remembered to get some pics of the peonies we got at the Dawes sale a few years ago (see earlier post). So, here is what the Pink Spritzer peony in our yard looks like:
Betula nigra ‘Summer Cascade’ January 10, 2010
Betula nigra ‘Summer Cascade’: We picked up two specimens of Summer Cascade river birch at the silent auction at the Dawes Spring Sale in 2008. They are in our front yard. Pretty interesting, they are a river birch with a weeping habit. Here’s what the plant tag had to say about them:
“Betula nigra ‘Summer Cascade’: Summer Cascade river birch (syn. Summer Cascade red birch)
A new selection of a popular deciduous tree; it has a weeping, mounded form with gracefully arching branches. Very fast growing! Staked upright it can be grown taller, left alone it continues to mound upon itself. Exfoliating bark is brown, tan, and gray. Resistant to bronze birch borer and leaf minor. [miner???] Use as a specimen, focal point especially near water. Original plant grew 6′ tall and 10′ wide in ten years. Very adaptable especially to wet soils. Avoid high pH soils. Hardy in USDA Zone 5. Species native to e. US.
*acquisition-source nomenclature is used for plants until taxonomic verification is completed.”
the other tag with it reads: ”Rec as: Betula nigra ‘Summer Cascade’ from TDA Nursery 9d2005-03690 Orig. from Klehm’s Song Sparrow Provenance: CGO How received: CT D2005-0556″
We’ve staked both of the to develop a strong leader, and are thinking we might clean off some of the trunk branches on one to have an umbrella form while leaving the other one with its trunk branches and letting it mound up on itself. But for now, they are both just staked and relatively un-pruned. I don’t have super-great pics, but you can see them in the foreground of these two, taken in the spring of ’09.
Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ January 10, 2010
Cotinus coggyria ‘Royal Purple’: Ah, finally a smoke bush! Our neighbor has one that I admire whenever I see it. At a season-end sale this year, we got one for $9.00 and I’m just tickled. Of course, it is very wee and it went in late, so here’s hoping it lives. I don’t have a picture yet -it went in that late! Right now I’m just dreaming of seeing the lovely purple leaves and signature large wispy panicles of flowers that make it “smoke”. It’s a slower growing shrub/small tree that when mature can get to 15 feet tall and wide.
Miscanthus sinensis ‘Graziella’ January 10, 2010
Miscanthus sinesis ‘Graziella’: In the fall of our first year here we were able to scoop up some incredible end-of-season bargains at a nearby Lowes. It was a new Lowes on this side of town and I think somebody really miscalculated what the demand would be for plants, and so there was a lot to be had for crazy cheap that year. It hasn’t happened since. That sale was the stuff of legend, and my husband and I still have fits of giddiness about some of the things we got. Among our favorites? We snapped up 2 single gallon pots of Graziella Miscanthus for $.50 a piece. Fifty cents!!! Granted, the grasses looked sort of sad and dry, but we figured it was worth risking a dollar. Boy howdy were we right to gamble on those 2 plants! Lovely.
We planted these two clumps of ornamental grass on the outside of the fence along the alley, hoping to get some natural screening from them without having to water too often. It’s worked out pretty well. The foliage is slender and sort of striped, and in August it develops feathery silvery plumes. Ours are about 5 feet tall. Although they are only supposed to be mildly drought tolerant, ours have proven pretty tough. It’s hot and dry on the strip outside the fence along the alley & we don’t water it often, but these have hung in well.
