More collections

I do not question the numerous collections of plants in this garden. All are favorites, so why not plant more?

‘Merrill’ is the easiest flowering magnolia in the garden, often blooming a week or more earlier than the Star magnolia. At the forest’s edge, it has grown to thirty feet or taller.

While the possibility of cold damage to flowers of early flowering magnolias might eliminate their consideration in a smaller garden, the varying flowering times of multiple selections in this garden ensure that at least some will flower and fade without damage.

‘Royal Star’ grows as a small, spreading tree or tall shrub at the edge of the forest. Lower branches often contact the soil to root so that I occasionally dig and pot these to share.

The earliest magnolias to flower in the garden, ‘Merrill’ (Magnolia × loebneri ‘Merrill’) and ‘Royal Star’ (M. stellata) often suffer in freezing temperatures that are common in early and mid-March. Still, if flowers remain intact for the better part of a week, I’m happy. In the last weeks of February, the swelling buds of both magnolias are closely monitored in anticipation of the largest blooms of the early season.

‘Jane’ magnolia resides by the driveway where overhanging branches are occasionally pruned by delivery trucks. It flowers several weeks later than the earliest magnolias, and damage is more rare. Another purple flowered magnolia, ‘Daybreak’ will flower for the first time in early spring. It’s narrow, columnar form filled one of the few remaining small open spaces.

‘Jane’ (M. ‘Jane’) and several other early flowering magnolias, notably the huge, soft yellow ‘Elizabeth’ (M. x ‘Elizabeth’) in the front garden, bloom two to three weeks later when damage is rarer, though the sight of forty feet of browned flowers is ghastly.

Yellow buds of ‘Elizabeth’ open to pale yellow flowers. A ‘Yellow Bird’ planted two years ago has grown with exceptional vigor, but unfortunately, flowers were ruined by an I’ll timed freeze last year.

Evergreen magnolias ‘Bracken’s Brown Beauty’ and Greenback (M. grandiflora) and two semi-evergreen Sweetbay magnolias (M. virginiana) flower months later. Both tolerate full sun or shade and varied soil moisture, including the very damp rear garden. Unfortunately, lower branches of the prized Bigleaf magnolia (M. macrophylla) have been lost as its surrounding shade has increased so that huge leaves and flowers are now visible only at a distance.

Sweetbay magnolia tolerates sun or shade, damp and dry souls, but it flowers more abundantly with more sun.

Perhaps the least ornamental of the magnolias, the Bigleaf is a particular favorite.

The native sweetshrub flowers in mid-April.

‘Athens’ flowers alongside the red flowered sweetshrub.

In close proximity to the bigleaf and sweetbay magnolias in part shade is a small collection of sweetshrubs (Calycanthus). The native (C. floridus) is first to flower in early spring, but often accompanied by the pale yellow ‘Athens’ and ‘Michael Lindsey’. Soon to follow are hybrids ‘Venus’, ‘Hartlage Wine’, ‘Aphrodite’, and the recently planted, dark leafed ‘Burgundy Spice’ that has grown vigorously in part sun.

‘Hartlage Wine is the most floriferous sweetshrub in the garden.

Flowers do not stand out against the dark foliage of ‘Burgundy Spice’, but it is a splendid and worthwhile shrub.

‘Venus’ is perhaps too shaded to flower to its potential.

‘Aphrodite’ is the latest of the sweetshrubs to flower.

Much of the ground beneath the magnolias and sweetshrubs in the side garden is covered by an uncountable number of hellebores (Hellebores). The larger hellebores number a hundred or more, but there are hundreds more seedlings that will be thinned, with many discarded, and others left in place until the third year when flowers determine if they are worthy of transplanting.

Seedling hellebores are arguably unsightly or splendid, but I adore the variations.

The Christmas rose (H. niger) begins flowering early in December, with hybrid varieties beginning to bloom as these fade in January and continuing into March. Seedlings of Stinking hellebores (H. foetidus) add textural, finely divided leaves, while other seedlings might have unremarkable light green flowers or ones with splendid markings. All are treasured, and additions will continue as ones catch my eye.