This Seven Son tree’s (Heptacodium miconioides) meager blooms are excused by it’s small size (planted a year ago), but the still sprawling shrub has made considerable summer progress. Three branches have turned upright, as hoped when I wondered how a tree could be formed from only horizontal stems. Today, I see the path, and with a snip here and there a year from now the shrubby branching will be tamed into the start of a lovely tree.

Seven Son is not new to this garden. A large, multi trunked favorite was lost several years ago to an unfortunate blast of straight line winds that felled a number of trees in the area. No problem, I thought, it’s a weed. Soon, it will sucker from the roots. But it didn’t, so I’ve planted this more compact grower with the kooky marketing moniker, ‘Temple of Bloom’. Forgive me if I refer to it as a compact growing Seven Son tree.

The Seven Son is not a huge grower, but it had grown about as tall and wide as it could get, and when it became apparent it would not grow back after the storm I could not find another large enough to fill the void. So, this spot was filled by a red horse chestnut, which has proved to be a wonderful tree except that its leaves spot terribly every summer. I kept an eye open for another Seven Son, but with no idea where it could go until a year ago.

There were no ideal places to plant the tree, but with a little digging and shuffling space was created. There’s always room to be found for a must-have, and while it is a few years from being a tree, I’m happy to have the Seven Son back.