These words will be read at the beginning of the fall planting season, so it may be good to consider some improvements in the spring garden, which can be made by planting well-chosen shrubs in the fall.
At the outset, however, I must emphasize that only shrubs that have matured and are fit for moving should be planted or moved at this time because all the advantages of fall planting may be lost if the growth of shrubs or rose plants has not matured and reached the beginning of its dormant period.
Atmosphere of Spiraea Vanhouttei
I grew up in an atmosphere of Spiraea vanhouttei and what were called “snowballs,” which preceded the mock oranges and the weigelas. Then we came to have Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora, which we now call “Peegee.”
This particular shrub, from Japan, was violently advertised and came close to covering the entire country with its summer blooms which were praised because they never ended hut hung on in a dirty, dull pink – if you could call it pink – over the winter.
Incidentally, it was all of 20 years before I discovered that H. paniculata – not Peegee – was a grand and different shrub that could be relied upon to do a beautiful late summer job without any winter imposition.
And I am sorry that this is not more widely grown because it is vigorous enough and much more beautiful than the overdone Peegee ever was.
For a long time, the planting at my summer home at Eagles Mere was dominated by a man who knew only three plants, which he called hydrangea, lilac, and fern.
As time went on, it seemed advisable to look for other spring flowering material. For aid, I turned to some real plant lovers among the nurserymen, who responded with many other items.
Deutzias
When John Dunbar was the head of Highland Park in Rochester, N. Y., he made a world search for new deutzias, among other things.
And from the cuttings he sent me, we grew a dozen kinds of deutzias that every June are the glory of Breeze Hill – even to the extent of making us look away from the roses!
If anyone wants a better deutzia than the common one he has been growing, let him get the Boule de Neige variety of Deutzia lemoinei compacta. And also, if he can manage it, a plant of D. magnifica, a late-blooming but thoroughly distinct variety.
He will likewise derive much satisfaction from any of the forms of D. rosea, and there is one easily obtained nursery form called Mont Rose, which is distinctly advantageous to own.
Chinese Fringe
If one is willing to plant and hope and wait, he can do an excellent job for his garden by obtaining, if possible, a plant of Chionanthus retusus.
The common name for this shrub is Chinese fringe, and there is an intimate relation to it known as C. virginica, or white fringe, which grows naturally from Pennsylvania to Florida and Texas.
But like so many things that seem to have been perfected in Asia by what Professor Sargent once told me was the “glacial drift,” the Chinese species is far and away the finer.
At Breeze Hill in 1910, I started a little Chinese fringe plant from a nurseryman in Illinois.
It has grown steadily and beautifully until it is now something like 25′ feet high and equally broad, and each year is covered with the fringe that gives it its name.
It is the most distinctive white-flowering thing that occurs at this time, and I have gladly provided such propagating material as I could to nurserymen willing to appreciate it.
Beauty Bush
A little later blooms a shrub with the rather annoying common name of Beauty Bush and the difficult botanical name of Kolkwitzia amabilis.
But when it blooms, it is a 10-foot mass of rich pink beauty, and it forms the focal point of one of the pictures from the home, which I have been planting for more than 30 years.
This shrub is easily obtainable and will well reward the planter, with the secondary advantage that the “remainders’ ‘ are an agreeable light brown that continues the show.
Styrax Japonica
Not very far away is another small tree I first got to know because I saw it blooming at that great nursery in Rochester, now sadly out of existence, which made the name of Eliwanger & Barry famous for a generation.
This Styrax japonica has good clean foliage, and every one of its white flowers (there must be millions of them!) hangs downward.
I recall that when I first saw this plant in the Arnold Arboretum under the guidance of that world plantsman, E. H. Wilson said that he couldn’t help getting right down on the ground under the tree so he could look up and fully appreciate its unique beauty.
I think this styrax is easily obtainable now, and I may say that it is another of those trees one should plant with his eyes open and be willing to give room to perform at its best.
Viburnum Family
The Viburnum family comes next.
Many will have seen advertisements of Viburnum carlesii, which, quite early in the season, comes through with a shapely bush of good leaves and clusters of lovely and extremely fragrant flowers to delight the sense of smell and the sense of sight.
Certain good English nurserymen improved on earlesi and gave us V. burkwoodii, with other improved viburnums, I think, in the offing.
Viburnum Acerifolia
One of the families I first became acquainted with in the Pennsylvania hills has the explanatory name of V. acerifolia because it has leaves like a maple.
More important, though, is that it will grow in shady spots and provide an excellent ground cover in addition to its very pleasant flowers.
Viburnum Opulus and Viburnum Theiferum
V. opulus is common enough, and its fuzzy snowballs come quickly but do not last. Then there is V. theiferum (V. setigerum), which does not make snowballs but does send forth long fiat branches with fascinating white blooms that add another grace to the garden.
The best of the ‘snowball’ viburnums is V. macrocephalum sterile, which provides large, even, and substantial snowballs that last and cover the plant astonishingly well.
Cydonia Family Blooming in May
Blooming about the same time in May, and sometimes just a little before May 1, I have found a desirable variation in using the Cydonia family.
When I was a boy, we called it the Japanese quince because its hard and somewhat oddly shaped fruits have an acidity which, after one bite, will subdue even a young boy’s appetite.
In more recent years, this family, which normally bears brilliant scarlet flowers, has been tremendously improved by a very canny nurseryman in California, W. B. Clarke of San Jose, with the result that there are now delightful variations with white flowers, pinks, and even striped flowers that will add the note of difference so much needed in the spring garden.
Early in my garden experience, I detested the weigelas because the flowers were coarse and, to me, unattractive.
But all this has passed with the appearance of newer varieties, so I now consider them among the very finest of the spring shrubs, having great vigor and beauty.
I am thinking of the hybrid variety Feerie which, in this good blooming season of 1947, covered the great plant at Breeze Hill with its exquisite light pink blooms.
There is also a pure white sort, and perhaps the best of all is the hybrid variety Bristol Ruby, which a Bristol nurseryman has refined from a French sort called Eva Rathke, itself an impressive scarlet beauty.
Roses
Because I am certainly a rose-minded plant lover, I must, of course, touch upon my specialty by commending to your thoughtful attention the very earliest of all roses to bloom – Rosa primula, which opens its covering of light primrose flowers weeks before any other roses are more than thought of.
When I look at my great plant of what for a long time was called Rosa ecae, which now refers to a different and far less desirable form, I think of my introduction to R. primula by Professor Sargent of the Arnold Arboretum.
He commended the bloom and drew attention to the majestically beautiful plant that would inevitably follow a proper planting.
The fact that this rose has a fragrance that, under certain damp conditions, pervades even its twigs and leaves, themselves uniquely beautiful, is still another of its attractions. You cannot easily miss it!
Right after Rosa primula, usually a week later, comes R. hugonis, which in commerce is known as the Golden Rose of China. It is much deeper, yellow, and a splendid shrub to have anywhere.
All these items I have recommended for your consideration are out of the ordinary, and they all will help to dignify any garden that substitutes them for the more commonplace kinds.
44659 by J. Horace Mcfarland