It’s good to see there’s someone else way behind on their to-do list this spring. Mother Nature just can’t seem to catch up after her struggle to end Old Man Winter’s long soliloquy.
Case in point is Kingwood Center’s Garden Discovery Day this Saturday. Since its inception sixteen years ago, it was always the first Saturday of May. This was so it would coincide with peak tulip bloom, and many times the tulips would be all but finished by Mother’s Day, just a week later.
With the weather this year it appears both Garden Discoverers and moms will be tiptoeing through the tulips. Maybe that was Old Man Winter’s plan all along.
From the Front
Reports coming in from the front lines are saying that landscapes are littered with winter casualties. The list includes holly, boxwood, juniper, arborvitae, and though I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, english ivy.
The prognosis is not good on the holly and boxwood, although they may resprout from the bottom up. As for junipers and arbs, they should recover except for the most exposed plants. And the ivy? Well, we can only hope, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Let me know how your plants fared, particularly, if you believed the new hardiness zone classifications and planted some Zone 6 plants. Last winter was definitely a Zone 5 one. So don’t even think about planting your tomatoes early.
Beauty and the Beast Within
Pears are beginning to open their blooms in the landscape and I am reminded of a trip I took to Youngstown a couple falls ago. It was a beautiful morning, and the rising sun just lit up the orange and red foliage of some saplings growing along a rural fence row. As I slowed to see what they were, I realized they were wild Callery pear seedlings.
The Callery pear was first brought to America from China in the early 1900′s. Its fruit had no commercial potential, but it was resistant to fire blight, which at the time was a serious threat to the domestic pear industry. Seedlings were allowed to grow in the USDA test fields, and in the 1950’s one tree caught the attention of a USDA scientist. It had a very tight form and was loaded with white flowers. By the early 1980s, this tree was ubiquitous in landscapes and along city streets. It was known as the Bradford pear.
As the trees grew however, a serious flaw was revealed. Once they reached a certain size, they began to break apart in heavy winds. Not one to give up a good thing, the nursery industry quickly introduced and promoted new cultivars such as “Aristocrat,” “Red Spire,” and “Chanticleer.”
This is where the trouble with the Callery pear began.
Pears are like apples. They are self-sterile and need a different clone to produce fruit. So the Bradford never produced fruit when it was the only cultivar in landscapes. Once other cultivars joined them, the pears began producing fruit, much to the delight of the birds. Unfortunately, as the birds distributed the seed, wild pears began showing up in places where they were not planted like the ones I saw that morning.
Since then I have seen thickets of them so dense nothing can grow beneath them. Still beautiful trees but these feral pears share a trait with their wild ancestors from China, something not found on their domesticated cousins. Almost all have long, sharp, glove-piercing thorns…the beast within.
Plant of the Week
Yellow is the color again with this week’s pick: yellow magnolias. Although they have been around for a while, it wasn’t until recently that nurseries had enough stock to make them readily available to the general public. There are several cultivars available, but the two I like the most are “Butterflies” and “Elizabeth.”
“Butterflies” in my opinion has the best yellow color. It has a broad habit and matures to around 18 feet tall. “Elizabeth” is a pale yellow but still beautiful, and the flowers are huge. It is more vertical and has the potential to become a large tree, 30-50’ tall and 20-35’ wide. Kingwood has good collection of yellow magnolias and they should be blooming around now.
What’s Happening
As mentioned, Kingwood’s Garden Discovery Day is this Saturday from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. Check out their Facebook page for details.
Steve McKee of Gorman Nature Center will be busy this weekend. On Friday, he will host their monthly Night Sky program at 9:30 p.m. (if the skies are clear), and the next morning will lead the annual spring walk at Fowler Woods beginning at 10 a.m. Call them at 884-3764 for more information.
For those of you who are looking to feel good about yourself and have a good time, may I suggest joining the Friends of Mansfield Parks in Middle Park this Saturday for a spring cleanup of this wonderful little park. The vinca should be in bloom and it covers the wooded hillside above the creek. Here’s a link to the details: http://goo.gl/WLisNI .
If you have a garden related happening about to happen, I’ll be glad to find room for it here. Just email me the details at jmakley@centurylink.net, and don’t forget to take some time to get out there and get dirty.
Since his days as forced labor in his mother’s garden, John has learned to enjoy gardening and has actually made a career out of it. From the backyards of Columbus to the rooftops of Manhattan, John has soiled his hands. Former Head Gardener at Kingwood Center, John still gets his hands dirty in the local community. You can contact him at jmakley@centurylink.net.