Wee is usually the emcee for these kinds of threads, but there is so much going on around the Valley, I'm breaking tradition.
My Pterostyrax hispida is going great guns, and getting to be out of reach on the flowers way up high.
Edited to add italics and bold...
This message was edited May 4, 2016 11:19 PM
Very impressive. Either your nerves are as sound as steel, or you've got some sort of motion-stabilizing feature on that camera. Nice pictures. It's hard to get nice shots of those blastedly high blooms. Since yours are blooming, I presume mine are too. Thanks for the reminder to get out there to see what I can see. Don't expect it to be as focused - even motion-stabilizing features can't fully compensate for my palsy. I'll do my best.
Aha! I see the italics and bold are on the fritz. No matter; can go back later and make those edits.
How many get to see Camassia scilloides in its native haunts? These gems are growing in a pasture I can almost see from my house, and I drive past on my way to work.
Tough life...
No extra bells and whistles on this now aging camera - it's just a Nikon CoolPix L100, with several dents from being clumsily dropped. It is aggravating, when I can't get it to focus on details. It is rewarding, when it does focus on details. I just take lots of shots and hope some come out decently.
My motion stabilizing is having the camera strap around my neck, stretching my arms out till the strap is tight, and then trying to see if the image is in focus or not.
Can't have enough namesake trees blooming...
How often do you get up close and personal with Kentucky Coffee Tree (Gymnocladus dioicus)?
Let's see, let's see, what else...
Red Buckeye and Japanese Snowball Viburnum are coincidental in bloom time - but these plantings are no coincidence.
Sort of a weird spring, admittedly because I've had some unfortunate distractions from the yard, but several usually reliable trees were duds this year. Not sure why. Here are a few from this past weekend.
My first Stewartia pseudocamellia bloom for this this year. Budded up beautifully, so lots more to enjoy in the next week or two.
Deutzia Codsall Pink is blooming (though not very 'pink') - I tried to 'rejuvenate' it last year - looks pretty awful at the moment, but another year of hacking might help reign it back in.
I have an odd Itea (Itea yunnanensis) which isn't hardy here, but has survived (burlapped over winter) - cranked out a bloom this spring. Pretty exciting.
The more common Itea (I virginica) is overgrowing it's space. It (and an adjacent Neviusia) was supposed to act as a hedge along a walkway, but if either encroaches another inch, there'll be no walkway left.
Deutzia Codsall Pink has a magnificent bloom. I think it was in another thread somebody else posted a white blooming shrub with 'pink' in it's name. Hybridizers wearing rose colored glasses?
Edited to swap the word white for pink...oops.
This message was edited Jun 11, 2016 2:28 PM
What a beautiful menagerie! Why stop at May?
Wee, after several years my two Deutzia Scabra Pink are finally blooming. My perception was that they are the favorite of thrips, which would attack them each year. A couple of years ago they went after some of my roses. No big deal if the rose reblooms, and they all put out new foliage and bloomed, but no blooms on such a wonderful plant was a bummer. So I broke my personal rule and used acephate, a systemic, and gave them extra water. Any suggestions Wee, for getting more from the plant? Even the few blooms I finally got make it worth keeping.
It has been a good year for my hydrangeas.
I think the mild winter is the key.
This one is H. serrata Beni Gaku.
The color transition from week to week is interesting.
Here are a couple others.
The first is a really small guy, H serrata Shirafuji.
Delicate pure white blooms.
He just got beaten down by an annoying hail storm,
so it was hard to find unmangled flowers.
I don't know the 2nd one's name.
Pretty lacecap. I think it's a macrophylla, but not really sure.
Stunning as usual, you've got an eye for unique Wee!
Beni Gaku is beautiful! Interesting how fast it turns.
This is Daydream from Frelinghuysen Arboretum. This has the most beautiful blooms I've ever seen on a smokebush.
A couple of other blooms from the arboretum...
1. Sourwood
2. Edith Bogue Southern Magnolia
3. A not too healthy Clethra barbinervis
4. Allspice
5. Tiger Eye Sumac with a few cones
Gee, Loretta, you've got a good eye for all things crooked, first the cimifuga (actaea, I guess) and now the clethra.
And boy that Edith Bogue flower is perfectly shaped.
I can smell the fragrance from here.
Lol! I didn't have a choice with the clethra. All the blooms were that way. Here is a dark picture of the whole tree. It isn't taken care of because it's in a rough area and I didn't get closer because it was surrounded by poison ivy. Still I always liked the tree. It has the nice bark so I visit it once in awhile. I think this is the first time I caught it in bloom.
This message was edited Jul 12, 2016 9:39 AM
I have a couple juveniles of C barbinervis & C accuminata - both can't seem to decide whether to thrive or die. 5+ years old but neither growing nor dying - I seem to specialize in plant limbo.
Here's a pretty hydrangea relative which isn't hardy for me, but I like it well enough to overwinter in the garage. It's Dichroa versicolor. It has these big juicy buds which are attractive for weeks before it finally blooms. Just finishing blooming now. Tolerates pot abuse pretty well.
Now that you mention is, my C accuminata is just as bad with good and bad years.
Dichroa is totally new to me. That is really nice. I had to google it. It is evergreen?
Dichroa versicolor ia aptly named, blooms opening up to different colored jewels.
Your Arboretum pics sure are special, lots of little beauties in that bunch.
This message was edited Jul 12, 2016 10:32 AM
Yes Loretta, D versicolor is generally evergreen, but I understand it can be herbaceous in marginal hardiness zones. In my garage, it retains it's leaves but they are pretty pitiful looking, but they perk right up in spring.
And of course, here is one of my all-time favorite shrubs, Aesculus parviflora (bottlebrush buckeye). It is a big/bold shade-tolerant shrub which has the remarkable quality of blooming in the middle of humid/hot summer. It manages to look beautiful despite the typical stultifying weather this time of year. I have several A parvifloras scattered throughout my wooded lot, but this is the latest blooming, so I presume it's the 'Rogers' cultivar of A. parviflora serotina. This one lines my driveway and it's a welcome sight whenever I arrive home in the midst of our steamy summers. Gets better & better every year! It's a beast now, easily 10ft tall.
I've got a Aesculus parviflora, look what I've got to look forward too...yay!
I would like to see more of that planted around in the park areas.
It's got those crooked blooms you're fond of, Loretta!
You're right, Wee! Lol! I was just thinking that they weren't the usual straight up ones I see. I did take a recent picture also at the arboretum but they came out blurry. I have a neighbor with some nice mature buckeye but they didn't know what they had and they're gone.
Overwintering in the garage! Yeah! I love to do that! I got beaten up on the rose forum years ago for explaining to people just how to do that. There is a school of thought that you should just toss plants into the ground and apply "tough love" which often results in death. Hey, I didn't go to that school.
Pfg (Pam) sent me double pink platycodon seeds a couple of years ago. She's not on Dave's right now because of a health issue in her family - she posted about this. But I was one of the lucky ones who received her personal email, so I just sent her these pictures.
Here is my tribute to Pam for her gift. They are at the feet of blue platycodons, and I am going to establish them in another area so that they are even more visible.
