Searching for the unexpected in the gardens...

No... that's not a small chicken egg attached to that branch... rather, it's a bud of Magnolia sieboldii 'Colossus'. This is exactly the type of thing I've referred to in the title of this post. I suspect we all plant things that we tend to forget about until there it is... my Colossus plants are three in number and grow beneath the Aesculus carnea... they spread fairly wide in this much shade and don't bloom all that much... it's always a neat surprise to discover them in blossom. Perhaps I forget to look for them as I'm always looking up when I pass the aesculus in full bloom.

Another nice surprise this season is the Father Hugo rose... I actually had chained this to a tractor some years ago and pulled it from the ground. The large white pine was shading it out and it simply didn't bloom enough to justify keeping it. Well, the winter's heavy snows and ice storm took a huge toll on the white pine and now a small piece of Father Hugo which remained after the dragging operation has developed nicely and this year is getting enough sun to bloom well... and I'm pleased as I have always loved this soft yellow one time bloomer...

Another small vignette that comes as a surprise each June is the combo of dictamnus and the brilliant color of Fagus sylvatica 'Tricolor'. How the light loves to play with the foliage of this tree... the first shot is in the early morning hours with the light coming from the east, whereas the second photo is in the evening with the sun behind the tree. This tricolor is always much darker and redder that my second smaller plant... as I noted in a recent post, the second is a pastel pink by contrast...

Here's Hosta 'Hollywood Lights'... a garden surprise only because it's tucked in an out of the way place and I forget to look for it...

My cypripediums are garden surprises only because it is their first year and so far I have a bloom on three of the six plants... I so look forward to the time that each of these can be considered a colony with many multiples of the now single blooms...

A final surprise that I noted today was the effect of three Picea abies 'Nidiformis' (Bird's Nest Spruces) after the plants have grown for many years in unequal light. Now that they have grown together but are different in sizes, it's as if one large undulating plant covered the ground... I do need to remove the grass that grows towards the left side of the combined plants since it doesn't get enough light here and detracts from the effect that the three conifers create...

Until next time, Larry

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