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| Bartzella is my favorite intersectional peony! |
It's peony time in Wisconsin and this year there is considerable overlap between the herbaceous, the tree peonies, and the intersectionals which are just starting to open ...
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| Callie's Memory |
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| Scarlet Haven |
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| Takara (Treasure) |
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| Pastel Splendor |
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| Bartzella with at least a couple dozen more buds to open |
Many of my herbaceous peonies are early season... this single is particularly nice because it maintains lovely colors even as it fades, giving a single plant at least three to four different shades of blooms...
Here is a later blooming peony that I must have purchased last fall... I like its chocolate red color but have no idea the name or where I bought it...
The tree peonies are very slim on bloom this season... perhaps because of last year's extreme drought... Hesphestos is blooming but sparsely...
Black panther is doing a bit better in the bloom department...
Dianthus continue to add color to the rock garden...
Sarah and got into the gardens by 5:00 a.m... what a gorgeous time of day! I spent much of the day planting some exciting new selections in the gardens here at Oak Lawn. Let me introduce you to a few of our latest plant additions... 'Mariken' is another dwarf ginkgo discovered in Holland as a witches' broom in 1995. In ten years it may reach 2' in height and perhaps 3' in width. Eventually it could get 3' tall by as much as 8' wide... mine is about 14" tall...
Another recent addition is this rather fastigiate cultivar of dwarf Pinus parviflora (Japanese white pine). I love the cones on these which are retained for very long periods of time...
Perhaps my very favorite conifer would have to be Picea glauca 'Pendula', a tree that can easily reach thirty feet and yet have a foot print of only three to four feet. You are not looking in a mirror in the next photo. I incorporated two plants into this area and look forward to them becoming focal points of the gardens...
Here's the view from the opposite side... (I'm running out of stakes as the New Milenium delphiniums came through the winter beautifully).
Another unusual and exciting addition is this Sciadopitys verticillata or Japanese Umbrella Pine. This is the cultivar 'Joe Kozey' which supposedly stays much narrower than the species, allowing it to handle snow load better. I will almost certainly wrap and tie this one up for winter. I had never considered the umbrella pine in the past, thinking it had hardiness issues... from my research it is apparently much hardier than I thought... we'll see!
Finally, my most exciting new addition is pictured below... you see, I love Japanese maples but most don't do very well here... well, that may all have changed with the Iseli introductions of the Jack Frost collection. These trees are crosses between Japanese and Korean maples giving us Acer x pseudosieboldianum (in this case) 'Northwind' and have easily withstood minus thirty degrees. I know from experience that the Korean maples have amazing fall colors and Northwind is said to be a dramatic orange-scarlet in the fall. It also has great red highlights through the summer when grown in full sun. There are others in the series and I'm told more on the way. I honestly don't have room for another tree in this garden, but if these meet the hype, I will gladly remove trees and shrubs to make a place for them!
That about does it for today... here are a few blooms I saw as I walked about the gardens this evening...
See ya! Larry
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| Fringetree (Chionanthus Virginicus) |
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| Helmond's Pillar Barberry with Globemaster Alliums |
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| White and pink forms of Dictamnus with Rodgersias |
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| Goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus) |
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| Crystal Fountains clematis |
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