Plants of interest.

[Treedbear]

Just a place to post pics of plants you encounter either when out hiking or around the yard.

Spring is here in CT and trees are leafing out. I planted a small red maple called Acer rubrum 'Shocking Gold' that I can't wait to see how the color progresses over the year. Should be pretty amazing. I mail ordered it from a new source out in the midwest late last fall so I'm just glad it's still alive.



Next is one of the seedlings from a Japanese maple Acer palmatum 'Sango-Kaku' aka "Coral Bark maple". The parent plant up and died on me several years ago but lots of its seeds sprouted around the yard. The result isn't supposed to be "true to seed" so you never know what to expect. This one did not disappoint.

 

[southernhybrid]

That is very pretty, although I think I prefer the traditional red maples. We have 3 in our back yard, two were volunteers, probably thanks to all of the bird feeders we have. We also have a cut leaf red maple in the back as well as one in the front yard. I think we planted the one in the front. It was supposed to be a red cut leaf maple, but it ended up turning green and not so much cut leaf. I guess that sometimes happens with hybrids.

I have some white azaleas that are over 8 ft. tall. They were here before we moved in 22 years ago. They are beautiful but since they only bloom once a year for about a week or so, I only get to enjoy the gorgeous blossoms and mildly sweet smell for a very short time. Meanwhile, my miniature gardenias will bloom several times a year. Gardenias are my favorite scent. My yard, more like a garden actually is full of a wide variety of beautiful tress and bushes, many of them were volunteers, which to me, makes them even more special. Feed the birds and they will often reward you with beautiful plants, although they aren't always in exactly the right places.

 

[Treedbear]

Majestic old red maples are great and the fall foliage can't be beat. My neighborhood is mostly swamp maples, white, red, and pin oak, beech, and hickories. Last year I added a Princeton Elm which gets huge but grows fast. I have a 60 year old red oak next to my house that I just spent large on trying to prevent the trunk from splitting. Needed pruning and two cables installed to protect it from high winds. But it will be worth it. The ones I'm planting now should mature at 30 feet or less. That's the nice thing about Japanese maples. They tolerate shade and work as an understory plant and there's an incredible variety. Each one looks like a work of art. I also like beech because they seem to be almost indestructible. I tend to favor unusual plants and have several weeping or pendulous varieties including one weeping purple beech that's now about 35 feet tall. It used to get extremely dark purple (almost black) in the summer but it seems to be trending towards dark green. In early spring when it first leafs-out it's a stunning salmon pink. I'll post some pics in a week or two.

I went through a horticulture phase about 40 years ago where I had a garden, bee hives, and spent my spare time at local garden shops looking for shrubs and trees and learning their scientific names. I had to give up the bees due to becoming allergic to their stings. Then years of neglect interspersed with a couple droughts and most of them died. The ones that didn't grew so tall that I can't raise vegetables with all the shade. So now I'm retired and get to spend time working around my half acre and I've noticed that suddenly my hobby has grown into some really stunning specimens. It's inspired me to think long term again and I've put in a few trees that will take maybe 20 years to really show their stuff. In the meantime they'll serve as my surrogate children and I get to watch how they develop.

ETA - If you like plants with a beautiful fragrance then I'd suggest the Japanese Snowbell (Styrax japonicus). It's a small understory tree that does well in the shade. I have one outside my bedroom window that's about 10 feet tall after 15 years. In early summer there's a blizzard of small white flowers that have yellow anthers and they hang down below the branches and give off a truly perfume-like fragrance for a couple weeks before they fall off and cover the top of my van. When I pull out of the driveway there's a carpet of white blossoms on the road behind me. But the smell is much stronger than my lilac or wisteria.

 

[crazyfingers]

The Japanese red maple in the photo looks to close the poison ivy for my comfort. Eek

I've never been terribly interested in plants. But I know my trees around here. I wish I had more Maples and white pines and fewer ash trees. In fact what I have mostly is dead ash trees, killed by the invasive winter moth caterpillars. Besides ash trees are the last to leave out and the first to drop each season.

But I have enjoyed in Japan seeing all there different kinds of trees. On the weekend I've enjoyed going to the park and a nature preserve in Tokyo and it is very interesting to see such different kinds the trees and plants. Even though I don't know what they are. I take bird pictures.

 

[Treedbear]

It reminds me more of the shape of a cannabis leaf. Poison ivy notably has 3 leaflets per leaf. I could take lots of pics of those as they are everywhere in my yard. A real pain. There used to be dozens of ash trees around town but they were all taken out by either some kind of virus or else more recently by the emerald ash borer beetle. It's gotten so bad that you can't move ash logs off your property. On the other hand they make real good fire wood even when freshly cut down. I'd like to visit Japan. Even settle there if I was inclined to move. Japan is 67% covered in forests.

 

[Treedbear]

Pic of my 35 year old Weeping Purple Beech. Salmon pink, almost orange that will change to shades of purple with patches of dark green. Fall color is nothing special though. There's English ivy covering the trunk from bottom to top. I've stuck a birdbath there on a wine barrel pedestal among the branches, some of which hang down 20 feet to the ground and sway gracefully in the wind.

View attachment 33431

 

[Treedbear]

Wups, sorry for the duplicate pics.

 

[Treedbear]

Here's my Climbing Hydrangea in bloom. Just plant a vine at the base of a large tree and check back in 30 years.