Freeze damage eliminated some, but not all, plant jewels

The horrendous December freeze, of course, is the culprit of said dearth.

Yes, old Satan robbed us of color this spring, and many more springs to come with a spate of vicious damage that will linger on into the years and even decades.

Our garden will never be the same. But, just for today, let us take leave of all that tragedy and diligently flesh out what flowers have made their appearance, or will in the coming weeks.

The most spectacular — ahem — of flowering in the past few weeks have been the deciduous — leaf-shedding — azaleas, commonly called “native” azaleas.

Well, some are and some either completely not or are hybrids of eastern and western hemisphere species.

First rate among our crop has been a 12-foot tall — they habitually get taller than the evergreen sorts — pale orange (coral) deciduous one that has flowered for a big part of April and on into May. 

I don’t know its varietal name, but the startling color flies in your face as it is sited in the edge of a gray and brown, and finally green, woodland.

That is, with enough sun to provide plenteous bloom, but shade enough to succor it during our miserable summers.

Our coral one has a near neighbor that mingles delightfully with its pinky-red flowers.

Not far away are some real natives, the white and pink ones called by old-timers as “bush honeysuckle,” doubtless because its flowers resemble true honeysuckles in both coloration and heavenly scent.

These were moved – stolen? — from a site in a wilderness west of town that was being clear cut with the result that many specimens more than 20 feet tall were rent asunder by bulldozers and skitters as the lumberjacks went about their calling.

“Woodsmen, spare that tree,” had no effect and the men were out to make a livelihood with their skill.

We, and Mike and Judy Garner, have a number of these reaped from other wilderness sites.

On the domestic front, there are on our place a pair of modern varieties of mock oranges with snow white flowers for weeks in April and into May. The aroma of these relatively new ones have, alas, less effect than some old varieties.

Who could enjoy spring without Japanese maples?

Of our collection, the oldest, at some 25 years, was obliterated by the freeze, and what a loss it was.

Thankfully, several others survived.

Of our numerous varieties, the most enjoyable, in the long run, is ‘Summer Gold,’ which unfolds in April with the same yellow-green as other trees but then holds that same freshness right on through our brutal summers without assuming a more somber green that some others reveal.

The staying power of the ‘Summer Gold’ is its fortunate habit as it grows slowly to some 15 feet or more tall and as much wide.

Our woodland has a relatively showy crop of the common red buckeye, Aesculus pavia, that is native to the southeastern United States, and yields after bloom “conkers,” or chestnuts that we carried in our pockets as lads for good luck.

The tree grows to some 10 or 15 feet and yields, in April and May, stemmy red flowers that are quite attractive at close range.

In good conditions, i.e., woodland, the tree self-seeds about prolifically.

Waiting in the wings, until about late April, after all this is the Kousa dogwood that resembles the natives but flowers a good bit later, May to wit, and stretches the dogwood season by at least a month.

The Kousa is also more resistant to diseases and other troubles that haunt our native dogwoods.

We have two in the last half-century on our place.

The first one was from Julia Hutson over on Edgewood Street, an early plant aficionado who did much to encourage gardeners in this area.

There are as we speak fine specimens of unusual trees in this county that she endowed.

There was one of her pets, a Chinese fir tree, Cunninghamia lanceolata — forget it — that had grown to a majestic size on her lot on Edgewood Street before suddenly it was gone. 

JIMMY WILLIAMS is the garden writer for The Post-Intelligencer, where he can be contacted on Monday mornings at 731-642-1162.