Dog Days of Spring

One of my favorite spring flowering trees is the native dogwood (Cornus florida).  In my neck of the woods, flowering dogwoods light up the shady woodlands with their big white blossoms this time of year.  They look so ornamental that most would suspect they were planted as part of a master landscape plan.  I didn't have any of these "wild" trees on my own land when I started gardening so I have added a few over the years.  I didn't treat them like specimen trees, but planted them at the woodland edge like Mother Nature would.

The white dogwood pictured here has bloomed reliably since I first brought it home from Home Depot several years ago.  It has doubled in height and width since planting.  In very dry summers, it does get powdery mildew, but never loses its leaves.

I also have a larger pink dogwood cultivar that I bought from a nursery years before the white one.  I would love to show you pictures of its blooms, but there aren't many and most are on the top of tree, requiring you to get up high to see them.  The tree has grown well, but has never produced an abundance of flowers.  I think this pink cultivar may require more sun than it gets to set blooms.

After seeing so many dogwoods peaking out from the woods on my drive to work this week, I think I may poke a few more into my woodland setting this year.   I'll skip the expensive ones at the nurseries and look for a few more from Home Depot.  I'm sure those are already on sale.

A "Mash-Up" of Seasons

Hyacinthoides hispanica

I think this year in the garden will be filled with many unexpected events and surprises.  Just a few weeks ago, we had unseasonably warm temps in the area nearly reaching 90 degrees.  Now it's blustery and cool.  Some plants look a bit stunted while others are fully leafed out.  If you watch the TV show Glee, you may be familiar with their "mash-up" of songs. A mash-up is when the vocals and instrumentals of two or more songs are seamlessly blended together. Maybe we should use the term mash-up to describe the seamless blending of garden seasons.

Just yesterday, I noticed roses blooming in the back garden while Spanish hyacinths were just hitting their prime along the side of the house. Redbuds trees (Cercis canadensis) have yet to drop their blossoms and the doublefile viburnums (Viburnum plicatum var. tomentosum) are ready to flower about a month early.

As a seasoned gardener, you learn to take all these changes (good and bad) into stride and realize that while you may be the stage manager, Mother Nature is the director of your garden show. And this year she's experimenting with some new seasonal mash-ups.

Rosa 'Purezza'

Let It All Hang Out

Long, unpruned braches curve gracefully downward

As the last flowers of my forsythia fall to the ground, I thought how shapely my shrub has become in bloom and out.  Unlike some of my hollies and boxwoods, I prefer to leave forsythia in its natural state.  Its long slender branches rise up and curve downward with such a graceful form.  I do occasionally prune out extremely vertical limbs, but for the most part I leave it alone.

I drive by so many houses where the forsythia have been pruned severely into unnatural shapes like globes and squares.  Extreme pruning or pruning too late eliminates most of the beautiful yellow spring blooms.  So during bloom time, you will see these clipped shrubs with only tufts of yellow on the top or on the sides where pruning didn't cut as deeply into old growth.  These sparse clusters of blooms remind of a child who tried to cut his own hair.

I say, "let it all hang out".  Put your forsythias in beds and borders where they can take on a more natural shape.  Save your topiary skills for your evergreens.