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Summer Blooming Shrubs and Trees
Globe and Mail Column
June 29, 2002
SUMMER BLOOMING SHRUBS AND TREES
by Marjorie Harris
By the end of June we often forget the plants ready to boost the blooming period of the garden. My favourite solution is to have summer flowering shrubs and trees to fill any holes prone to the summer doldrums. Given the fact that I have rich soil but not a lot of light I figure that most will get to their allotted size a bit slower than a garden filled with more light. But I've got good drainage which is essential to all of these plants.
My first discovery, and still the best one of all, is Viburnum plicatum tomentosum 'Summer Snowflake'. I'm crazy about all viburnums but this one is my favourite. Though it is only supposed to grow to just over two metres, it's taller than that in my garden probably because it's in a protected place and the soil has a high organic content. The leaves are slightly pleated (plicatum), slighty grayish (tomentosum) and turn a bright red in autumn. And the blooms are utterly enchanting. They have a lace cap look to them with the real flowers tightly encased in the centre and sterile and flashier rays on the perimeter. These flowers start in June and stay with us until frost hits in the autumn. Right now both of mine are spectacular in spite of being lashed to a fare-thee-well by a recent rainstorm. One of the finer habits of this plant is that it will bravely put on a few blooms even in its first year. The older it gets, the more voluptuous it becomes. So far I've had nothing go wrong and just occasionally whack it here and there to keep it's lovely horizontal branching form.
I like putting woody plants in surprising places all through the garden so that there is never a feeling of the expected, the ordinary. A shrub in a perennial border will make it feel more established, perhaps anchor it in a way no other plant can do so. Enkianthus campanulatus is one such plant: it is narrow so it can be popped into almost any location. It is shade-loving, has red stems and bell-like blooms in a pale almost lingerie pink with slightly darker striations that go on for a couple of weeks. I particularly like this one backlit by the early morning sun. I have it in between an amsomia (starry mid blue flowers) and a Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) which is now forming its brilliant red fruit. Once the bloom has gone from the enkianthus, it is modest enough to disappear, inundated by the surrounding tall perennials. Then it emerges in a flaming yellow orange in autumn. It grows very slowly to about 3M.
Styrax japonica is the newest addition to my collection of shrubs and trees. Putting this small tree in the perfect spot meant that a weeping silver pear, Pyrus salicifolia had to be moved. To find room for it in the front garden, a very old golden privet was moved right down to the street where it looks so much better in my neighbour's garden. The styrax meantime has an ideal site. It grows to 6M (very slowly) and has little silver bells which will hang on until one heat wave or another does it in. The reason for moving the pear (which doesn't produce fruit just spring flowers) was that the styrax's spread would have interfered with the growth of both plants. This is a really important principle to observe. We forget the size these plants can get when they are mere stick-like babies. Take those tags seriously.
Another little tree which will have late summer blooms is relatively rare: Maackia amurensis. It caught my eye in the nursery in spring. Ghostly gray alternate leave in a elliptical shape made such an impact I couldn't get it out of my mind. It's now ensconced (having displaced a huge old spirea to yet another garden) where I can see in front. The leaves have turned such a deep green I didn't recognize it back at the nursery. The plant is now getting ready to produce white hanging blooms (racemes). I hope it will come out just before another little tree later in the summer: Heptacodium micronoides. Neither of these trees has spectacular autumn colour but what I look forward to most is the exfoliating bark of winter. Both of these plants will grow to 7 M. and will be wide enough to screen me from the street.
The other blooming surprise is Physocarpus opulifolius 'Diabolo' (ninebark). This has to be one of the hottest plants to come down the pike in the past couple of years. No wonder: it has intense burgundy foliage, grows to about 3 M and spreads wide enough to be considered a really good background plant. Well, it does grow bigger than I thought it would given the space I'd allotted (between a buddleia and a black cimicifuga) and I've been busily keeping it down to size. Not last year however and this year I've been rewarded with rounded blooms, white with a pink tinge.
The other treat is a variegated Cornus florida (dogwood). I've had this one in my garden for many years and this year because of our almost BC like winter, it's covered in more creamy white bracts than I ever remember happening and it's late enough to move it right into the summer picture. It is a top grafted miniature of no known ancestry but usually these plants will get to small tree size of 10M.
I now see wave after wave of small trees and large shrubs re-defining my garden in a way no perennial could possibly do. The trick is to find similar ones in your own area and give them a try. They aren't hard to fit in and will certainly be ideal for a small garden, or in an area close to the house. You need to see these subtle blooms up close and you want to be there for the scent.
Copyright Marjorie Harris, 2005
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