Spring Flowering Trees

The spring flowering trees are all abloom here - and all at once! Here is my Amelanchier, covered in delicate white flowers. My neighbor has a wonderful tall pine which I think makes a great backdrop for the tree.

Amelanchier (Serviceberry) blooming

Here is a close up of the flowers. You can also see the wonderful felty gray leaves. The overall effect is delicate and ethereal - amelanchier is not as dense a plant as flowering crabapples, pears, or cherries.

Amelanchier (Serviceberry) flowers

Amelanchiers come in a variety of forms, from short and scrubby to medium shrubs to tall trees. Mine is a single-trunked tree form with an upright canopy. If anybody has any clue about which species this might be, let me know! I inherited it with the house, and I hate not knowing plants' names.

Amelanchier - upright form

My Canadian redbud (Cercis canadensis) is also blooming now. This picture is taken from underneath the tree, because there is a large play structure right up against it which totally obscures the view of it from the yard. Probably sounds awful but I am counting the days until my daughter outgrows the play structure, and I can finally open up this garden view!

Cercis canadensis (Canadian redbud) blooming

Crazily, even my lilac has buds on it already! This is a terrible pic, but just to prove to you that I am not totally lying here:

Lilac buds 3/28/12

Elsewhere about town (sadly, not in my own garden!), we currently have flowering pears:

Flowering pear (pyrus)

A variety of hardy northern magnolias:

Magnolia soulangiana (Saucer Magnolia)

Magnolia stellata (Star Magnolia)

... and even this crabapple! (To be fair, this guy is against a south-facing stone wall, so always blooms unusually early - but still! It's March for pete's sake!)

Crabapple blooming in Wisconsin March 28, 2012

Ordinarily, these trees would bloom here in sequence, over a 6 week period from April to May. It is just completely bizarre to see them all blooming at the same time. And what will there be to look at in May? Asters?

Early Spring Flowers

Hooray, early spring flowers are blooming! Miniature yellow daffodils are looking bright and cheery (as are the weeds... I've clearly got some work to do in there!). Tulips and tree peonies in the background promise to bloom sometime soon.

Narcissus 'Tete-A-Tete'

Siberian squill adds some rich blue under the maples. As you can see, these are very sparse still - they were planted just last fall. Hopefully they will eventually spread to form a spring carpet of blue. The vinca in the background also has a lot of ground to cover too - come on guys, let's get cracking!

Scilla siberica 'Spring Beauty'

Pale chionodoxa (Glory of the snow) is blooming gently against the dark backdrop of yew.

Chionodoxa 'Pink Giant'

Many trees are flowering or budding as well. My Amelanchier is a cloud of soft gray leaf and flower buds. I'm not sure what species or cultivar this is - we inherited it with the property. It produces sweet purple berries in summer that are appreciated equally by both the birds and my 5-year-old.

Amelanchier buds

Brilliant lavender-pink pearls adorn the Canadian redbud. I love how the color of the buds complements the silvery bark.

Cercis canadensis buds

Even the chartreuse flowers of the large shade maples look like heavenly froth at this time of year. Heralds of spring!

Maples flowering above thuja

Here are a few lessons I've learned so far this season:

1) I planted hellebores, bergenia, and hyacinth in what turned out to be the coldest, darkest corner of my new garden. D'oh! Everyone else's plants are blooming already, but mine are just barely making new growth... :-( Next year, I will know better.

2) The free wood chip mulch I got from my municipality is good for paths, but not for perennial beds. The young foliage has a hard time poking through and it just looks too coarse. My mulch budget is basically zero so I'm not sure where to find a free alternative. I am composting a large pile of fall leaves for leaf mold, but it will not be nearly enough...

3) Next year I need many MORE early spring bulbs, such as aconites, crocus, snowdrops, iris reticulata, and LARGER early daffodils (I love the minis, but they don't make much of a statement in the empty vastness of early spring). There are plenty of bare spots between perennials that could be doing some work right now!

Dwarf Pines at the Arboretum

Pinus mugo 'Aurea'

I'm in the mode of observing my new garden to identify holes in design and seasonal interest. A major hole I noticed this winter is the total lack of evergreens visible from INSIDE the house. I planted a few evergreen shrubs as soon as we moved in (there were absolutely none on the property when we bought it - not even the obligatory "yew mustache"!): so far we have some arborvitae, yews, boxwood, and a dwarf spruce. However, I placed ALL of them around the foundation or the perimeter of the yard, where they look good from the street. I entirely neglected to plan for myself looking out on the barren scene from the windows! (Duh.) So, I need to select some more dwarf evergreens that will liven up my winter view - but which ones? Off to the Arboretum for some fun research!

Dwarf pines at the UW-Madison Arboretum

My first objective is to plant a dwarf pine near my tree peonies. I love how pine and peonies look together. The Arboretum has lots of pines to look at - although on the cutest ones it's of course impossible to find the bleeping ID tag! Rrgh. But here are my favorites of the ones who would tell me their names. These were all photographed in mid-March, so this is basically what they look like coming out of winter, in the dullest possible time of year.


Pinus mugo (Mugo pine)

Pinus mugo 'Aurea'

'Aurea' is a broad, spreading Mugo pine with long needles of a glowing, golden-green color. Shape is pleasingly bumpy. I really appreciated how it lit up the landscape. It is probably somewhat large for my small yard.

Pinus mugo 'Big Tuna'

'Big Tuna' is a very cool looking pine (with an equally cool name) - it is indeed big and chunky. It has long, stiff needles and a tough-guy globular shape. I didn't measure it, but it is taller than an average person and roughly equally as wide. Again, a bit large for my purposes, but I may just have to make room...

Pinus mugo 'Teeny'

'Teeny' is very small and cute! A compact flattened-bun shape, with rich green needle color. I'm sure I can fit this one in, or something similar. Some people think green is boring, and want all "evergreens" to be golden, blue, white, or pink..., but in the long winter deep green is the color I crave most.

Pinus strobus (Eastern White Pine)

Pinus strobus 'Pendula'

This weeping Eastern White Pine looked awesome in the landscape, and you can go inside there and hide! My daughter would love that. Probably also some raccoons, foxes, rabbits, or even baboons would move in too... This one is not very dwarf - it's at least 10 feet tall, and wider.

Pinus sylvestris

Pinus sylvestris globosa viridis

This one has the most fantastic long, twisty foliage that gives it a very appealing fuzzy, tufted look. It won't fit next to my tree peonies but would make a great background plant.