A week of warm temperatures has brought the last of the Japanese maples into full, glorious leaf. Decades after planting many of them, I still marvel at the brilliant spring colors. Several have interesting flowers or seeds, but Japanese maples are about the foliage. As we visit this later leafing group of maples, I must…

My spring weekends are rarely spent laboring in the garden, but most often stumbling along rocky trails with my wife in our nearby Blue Ridge Mountains. An hour or two might be spent early one morning roaming the garden to catch up on anything missed during the workweek, but then Barbara and I are off…

I suppose that most area gardens hit their peak in May, and certainly this one does. Still, I’m overjoyed in this last week of April, though still waiting for several ferns that seem tardy but probably are always slow to come out. I am always on the lookout for interesting plants to add to the…

I could scream. As soon as leaves emerged , deer munched the lower leaves of the small, variegated horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum ‘Memmingeri’, below) planted a year ago. The top buds have not fully opened yet, so I can spray the repellent and I expect the small tree will survive. But, this is the reminder…

I am not inclined to get out into the garden to provide an inventory count of the various collections. There are better things to be done in the garden, like doing nothing, and counting serves no purpose that I see. But today, I am certain of one number. I regret there is but a single…

While the garden’s best is yet to come with May into June its peak, today I could not ask for anything more. Blooms of redbuds, dogwoods, and serviceberry (Amelanchier canadensis, below) are in view from every point in the garden along with colorful leaves of Japanese maples that fortunately escaped damage from recent freezes. A…

Again this spring, two twenty degree nights slightly damaged newly emerging leaves of ‘Twombly’s Red Sentinel’ Japanese maple (Acer palmatum ‘Twombly’s Red Sentinel’, below). Happily, other maples show minimal or no damage, and all (including Twombly’s) will be fine with no evidence of damage by late spring. ‘Twombly’s’ suffered similar browned leaves a year ago,…

With many trilliums flowering (Trillium grandiflorum, below) and a number of seedlings making their first appearance, I now pronounce that the quantity is satisfactory. In spring, I am overjoyed as each forgotten treasure is revealed with foliage peeking above the piles of leaves. However, as things go in this garden, when something is successful I…

Today’s favorite tree is the redbud (Cercis canadensis, below), and with the Virginia roadsides erupting into splendid color, how could I resist? In fact, my infatuation with redbuds extends far beyond their weeks long period of bloom. The mid-spring magnolias (‘Elizabeth’, ‘Yellowbird’, and ‘Daybreak’) are coming into flower in early April, fortunately with decreasing chances…

No way it’ll spread. Several Bottlebrush buckeyes have been in the garden for years, with no evidence that the shrubby, small tree would become a suckering, wide spreading clump. Until this week, when I showed my wife what I first thought were the many seedlings surrounding the clumped stems. I then looked closer to see…

‘Elizabeth’ (Magnolia x ‘Elizabeth’) is a glorious magnolia, tall and floriferous with pale yellow blooms. Could it possibly be improved? Of course yes, if only the flowers were the same brilliant yellow as the breaking buds (below). ‘Elizabeth’ is the most prominent tree in the front garden at the moment with many thousands of yellow…

Flowers and foliage of our native Allegheny spurge (Pachysandra procumbens, below) are delightful, but the argument to encourage planting the native rather than the more aggressive Japanese pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis) is rarely successful. The Japanese version spreads in the toughest, dry shade while the native is slow, though steady, wherever it’s planted. Despite its poor…