Trees in parks and gardens 2010

[johnw]

Davidia involucrata at UBC. The flower in my hand is the sanoma form, a whip in my garden. This form, if the nursery hype is to be believed, has flowers 3 times the size of the typical form and blooms at 3 or 4 years in the ground instead of the typical 10 to 20. I'm a believer.

No one in the east has had any luck with this one.  So I presume it is not var. vilmoriniana.   Do the slugs climbs that high out there?

johnw

[johnw]

And another tree. Sorry. Melliodendron xylocarpum flowering at UBC. Extraordinary tree but difficult to capture the beauty in a photo. Close to Styrax. Will have find a source for these. Philip

A new one to me. Where is it's natural habitat?


johnw

[Giles]

John,
China.
I've only seen one here in Cornwall.

[Philip MacDougall]

John, I think we've already discussed the fact that here on the west coast several species of slugs are capable of brief bursts of flight. Philip

[Paddy Tobin]

Is this a Kentucky coffee tree?

If it is, how hardy are they, as I had another about the same size that died over the winter.

Rob, that certainly looks like a Kentucky Coffee Tree. I have found that the leading bud regularly dies back over winter but is quickly replaced by the next in line in spring. Perhaps, our summers and autumns are not hot enough to sufficiently ripen the wood to harden it off to come through the winter.

Best of luck with it. Paddy

[Onion]

I like this tread very much.

Because of the trees (I'm a tree lover too ) and of the chestnuts.

Want to show two pictures from a tree seen in April in the Botanic Garden of Marburg.

Aesculus neglecta 'Erythroblasta'

[Onion]

A yellow flowering chestnut (only a shrub) 1-1,5 meter

Aesculus sylvatica

In my garden. Have set seeds since two years.

[Paddy Tobin]

Uli,

Two wonderful trees. I have never seen an Aesculus neglecta 'Erythroblasta' so large. It is an excellent specimen.
The Aesculus sylvatica is a beautiful tree/shrub.
Paddy

[Onion]

That is the main problem with Aesculus Paddy, most of them are toooo large for normal gardens.

So I'm looking for shrubby chestnuts. Most of them are not available in the nurseries here. Only with friendly guys you can get seeds of these chestnuts.

[cohan]

nice to see these aesculus..i admired some wonderful old giants when i lived in toronto..
here, the usual species at least, are not considered hardy, but there is a large tree in edmonton (north of here, zone 3, slightly colder midwinter, and warmer summer) that has survived many decades, and some people are trying seed from it, but i have not had a chance to try it yet...
shrubs would be nice to try too, i will have to look them up...

[Lori S.]

When we lived in Edmonton, someone a couple of blocks from us had a fairly large aesculus in the front yard.  There's also one in a yard down by the river, about a km from here - it's large but with a multi-stemmed/shrubby form.  Unfortunately, I never paid enough attention to either to figure out the species.  It's warmer and more sheltered in the river lowlands here - I doubt one would survive in our yard up on the hill.    

[Rob]

Rob, that certainly looks like a Kentucky Coffee Tree. I have found that the leading bud regularly dies back over winter but is quickly replaced by the next in line in spring. Perhaps, our summers and autumns are not hot enough to sufficiently ripen the wood to harden it off to come through the winter.

Best of luck with it. Paddy

Thanks Paddy
I think this is what happened to the other one, that the new growth didn't sufficiently ripen to make it through the winter.

[johnw]

Rob, that certainly looks like a Kentucky Coffee Tree. I have found that the leading bud regularly dies back over winter but is quickly replaced by the next in line in spring. Perhaps, our summers and autumns are not hot enough to sufficiently ripen the wood to harden it off to come through the winter.

Best of luck with it. Paddy

Thanks Paddy
I think this is what happened to the other one, that the new growth didn't sufficiently ripen to make it through the winter.

Paddy / Rob - Kentucky Coffeee trees grow here quite well.   Many very young trees lose their terminal buds here due to lack of ripening. After a few years somehow they overcome this and grow on without a problem.  Paulownia is an extreme example.  I've seen it freeze back to the ground countless years in a row and then suddenly it doesn't have a problem (at least until another 1993 winter rolls around).  As a youngster the interior is nothing but hollowy pith and yet I've heard it said the wood is highly prized in the Orient so something obviosuly changes in time.  I've even had Paulownia seedlings die back to the soil line over the winter in a frost free basement.

johnw

[cohan]

When we lived in Edmonton, someone a couple of blocks from us had a fairly large aesculus in the front yard.  There's also one in a yard down by the river, about a km from here - it's large but with a multi-stemmed/shrubby form.  Unfortunately, I never paid enough attention to either to figure out the species.  It's warmer and more sheltered in the river lowlands here - I doubt one would survive in our yard up on the hill.    

there's a northern gardening forum (mostly people into popular/new cultivars/hybrids so i haven't visited in a long time)  where they were talking about the big one--its right in downtown edmonton, but i didn't know of it when i lived there, or if i saw it didn't know it shouldn't grow there...lol..
i don't have the temperature advantage of the big cities, but we are quite wind sheltered by the surrounding bush--i have a Tilia cordata doing very nicely near my house, which was rated marginal in some provincial tests--survived in some of the plantings, not or damaged in others...
here's a view toward my acreage from up the road--we are at the upper right, behind the tall spruce trees..there is some sun in here, but bush all around and some trees within....lol

[ranunculus]

Beautiful Viburnum x carlcephalum captured in The Parsonage Garden, Didsbury, Manchester on Friday.

Viburnum x carlcephalum