You lose some, you win some

Mid-May in the garden reveals some issues, but also a fine assortment of beautiful sights. Let's start with the problems first.

I mentioned earlier that my Carolina Silverbell was toast. Here's a very sad picture of one tiny branch blooming exuberantly with the rest of the tree totally bare.

We had a really rough winter this year. It was really warm up until January (you may remember this picture that I published of my autumn-flowering cherry blooming in January). Then it very suddenly got extremely cold. Plants normally prepare for cold weather by building up the level of sugars in their cells. The high sugar levels raise the freezing point of the water inside the cells, enabling the plant to withstand colder temperatures without destruction. But when the weather turns cold abruptly, some plants may not be prepared for the cold weather. So the above-ground parts may die back while the roots are still alive.

This tree has had a sad history. Several years ago, the top broke off in a wind storm. The tree sent up several suckers from the roots and I'd trained a couple of them to form a new tree. This year I was going to select the best-shaped one and cut back the rest. Now it looks like I'll have to start the process all over again. Luckily, there are a number of new green shoots coming up from the stump.

Or, perhaps I should just give up on this tree entirely. Silverbells should be hardy in my area, but I don't know the source of the tree I originally planted. If it was the product of a southern nursery, it may come from less-hardy stock, which may help to explain why it died back this winter. Perhaps I would do better to replace it with a new tree propagated at a northern nursery.

This border used to be a shade border under a birch tree. But I lost the tree last year to bronze birch borer. So now these plants that prefer shade are exposed to full sun. From left to right, there's green and gold (Chrysogonum virginianum), white bleeding heart, daffodils, ferns, hostas, bluebells, wild blue phlox, and daylilies. I've planted a small sugar maple, which you can see it in front of the birch stump. This is a fairly fast-growing tree, but it will take several years before it gets to a size to provide any amount of reasonable shade. So it will be interesting to see how these plants do in the meantime.

But enough of the bad stuff - here's some things that are really looking good. I love lilacs and dogwood. Very old-fashioned - they remind me of my grandmother's garden and just make me feel good. And then there is a graceful stem of white bleeding heart, the delicate woodland foamflower (Tiarella), and the unfurling green leaves of hosta.

Comments

[Kim]

Oooh... nice pics. I like your tiarella. I have 'Crow Feather' but the shape of the leaves on yours are much more interesting. Any idea what cultivar it is?

[LeslieT]

Hi Kim. I think it's Tiarella 'Cygnet', although not positive about that.

[michael jones]

Amzing photos and post! The information you give proves how interesting garden issues could be ! Thank you very much