Today I hope to point out some of the things that are looking pretty good in the mid-May gardens. I should note that we are still about three weeks ahead of our normal schedule, so in a normal year, this would usually be a look at the early June gardens.
One of my favorite trees this time of the year is Aesculus carnea 'Briotti' (above and below), and with our cool evenings and pleasant days, it has been blooming for a long time already. The aesculus shares an area with a number of other trees including three japanese maples (Seiryu, Sherwood Flame, and Sango-kaku), as well as a number of woodland plants and hostas, the most colorful of which include 'Liberty' and 'Jimmy Crack Corn'.
Other favorite trees in the gardens include several Fagus sylvaticas... Asplenifolia is pictured on the left below accompanied by a youthful Tamukeyama japanese maple. This area is considered the birch walk and there are four quite mature clumps of Whitespire birch planted in the path to our small barn...
A Fagus sylvatica 'Dawyck Purple' can be seen in the next photo with a variegated maple on the right front side of this fastigiate tree (also seen in the first photo)...
Fagus sylvatica "Purple Fountains" accompanied by an old dwarf Pinus sylvestris and other conifers...
Here a small Fagus sylvatica 'Tri-color' combines with an early peony...
Speaking of peonies, in addition to the earliest ones, and tenuifolia (the memorial day peony/fern leaf peony pictured here... tree peony season is coming on strong...
Here are a few of the tree peonies...
While the new evergreen azaleas are going past, many deciduous plants of the Northern Lights series are holding their blooms very well... In both the photos below there are examples of fairly mature Pinus strobus 'Pendula' as well...
While many rhododendrons are now past, others are just in full bloom... This is Wyandanch Pink which likes a lot of sun and gets quite large over time...
Here is the beginning of the bloom in what we call the rhododendron glade... English Roseum can be seen on the left and in the third photo...
Here is a hardy Finnish cultivar called 'Helsinki University'...
Mikkeli is another large growing and extremely hardy Finnish cultivar...
Conifers are getting new foliage... always a special time the year for me... here is a Pinus densiflora, the Tanyosho Pine...
The largest of my four Picea omorika "Bruns Pendula" has a ways to go before it hits the thirty feet I'm looking forward to...
I especially enjoy the soft new growth on the Montgomery spruces...
A Picea abies "Pendula" still has a bit of Lathyrus vernus blooming at its feet...
Another conifer area holds promise for a colorful future with Pinus contorta "Taylor's Sunburst", Thuja occidentalis " Golden Tuffet", and a very blue dwarf Abies which is just out of sight...
Picea orientalis "Skylands" is also putting out colorful fresh growth...
A fastigiate Pinus sylvestris combines with a couple of Pinus strobus "nana"....
The rock gardens have all sorts of things blooming just now... I do enjoy these tremendously... the one I'm sharing today is the miniature conifer garden although I did use a few dwarfs as well... I am trying to establish alpine type plants as groundcovers here also...
Here Dianthus freynii occupies a portion of a trough...
I love the color provided by alliums at this time of the year...
I have at least a couple hundred cultivars of hostas and some are just outstanding now... here is 'On Stage'...
Here is one I particularly like but can't seem to locate the tag...
This one is missing its label as well, but I'm fairly certain it's "First Frost"...
It had been my plan to divide my heucheras this year but I simply ran out of time...
Next to the smaller of my two tri-colored beeches (on the right) is a dogwood cultivar that's a cross between a Kousa and Florida know as "Celestial" or "Galaxy"... it's really going to put on a great show this season which is not common in these parts...
On a more dimunitive scale, I now have thirteen cultivars of Pimula sieboldii... many are in bloom now and a couple cultivars are shared below...
Here is that difficult little plant of Cypripedium aucale whose site preparation took so much time... I guess if I can grow this one, there may be many that I can have success with... the hybrids are said to be much simpler to grow. For the past couple weeks I've been selling off many of my extra perennials... basically a van full for $50 and I did this several times. I've made enough to pay for quite a few hybrid cypripediums for fall planting... I'm determined to succeed with these... (famous last words??)...
It's sometimes problematic deciding what to do with trees when they start to decline... there's a lot of years left in this old spruce but about 20 + feet of branches had to be removed... that's where a wonderful climbing hydrangea works out just fine... it will create a beautifully blooming vertical accent over time...
It's easy to get excited over little things out here in farm country.... yesterday it was watching the maneuvers of the crop duster plane just over my trees...
Lately I seem to be having more and more "mental blocks" over scientific names... I was concerned until I realized that I'd introduced hundreds of new plants to the gardens in the last couple years alone! I might be ok after all... just very, very busy and having a blast being that way...
Be sure to stop in and visit Carol at May Dreams gardens to see what plants others are celebrating on the 15th of May...
Take care, Larry
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