Each Little World

Japanese maples say good-bye

We bought two Japanese maples in June 1999 when we discovered them on sale, baking on the blacktop of the garden shop at our nearby K-Mart store. Acer palmatum dissectum 'Viridis' cost about $25 while Acer palmatum atropurpureum was a mere $6.00. At those prices we decided to splurge and take a chance on growing them.

We've enjoyed these beautiful trees for twenty years, but finally they succumbed to our winter. This is not news to anyone in the Upper Midwest where Japanese maples were hard hit by the weather. 

We planted the A. atropurpureum at the back edge of the pond where its red leaves glowed in autumn.

It grew so well and so much that Mark pruned it significantly in the years when he could easily reach the branches to do so. 

This spring, when he realized the tree had died, he admitted that he'd always thought he had made a mistake planting a tree in that location. He felt it covered up the hill and the rocks that we had paid to have so carefully placed there. He was more than happy to let it go. 

When they got to the base of the trunk, Mark and the horticulturalist who he was helping take the tree down, discovered that it was only the crown of the tree that had died. The bit of the trunk pictured here has been sitting on our deck for a week and the leaves have not stopped looking good!

We planted the A. dissectum 'Viridis' right at the edge of the deck next to the house hoping to give it more winter protection while letting us enjoy it up close. 

Once we saw the red leaves on the other tree, I took a closer look at this one and discovered a little life as well. 

In addition to the leaves emerging at the top of the trunk, they are also emerging in a couple of places lower on the trunk. (Don't let that fern frond in the ground confuse you.) So we are letting this one stay while we see what happens. Maybe we won't need to say good-bye to it after all. 

Witch hazel shining out

The driveway still has a lot of color: red from the Epimedium rubrum and the leaves on the Korean maple tree and yellows from the clumps Japanese forest grass. The clump in the foreground is Hakonechloa macra, the plain green variety, while the rear clump is Hakonechloa macra 'All Gold.'

Now that it has lost its leaves my fall-blooming common witch hazel, Hamamelis virginiana, is clearly visible and looking lovely. Since witch hazel is an understory plant, I put it under an old silver maple tree where it has been very happy. 

In retrospect, I should have planted it with a dark background to show off the yellow flowers. But that's a concept that I didn't really think about twenty years ago when I planted it. It's rare that I can manage to take a photo of it with this many flowers visible. 

Peace and plenty and no politics today

GBBD: 11.15.18

It's rare to have flowers blooming in November in Wisconsin but it has happened some years. This November my clumps of Sedum 'Matrona' are the only flowers in sight. It was 20 degrees F. (-6.66 C.) when I got up this morning; not bad compared to yesterday when it was 15 degrees F. (-9.44 C.). Sun and temps in the high 30s F. are forecast for today so I will get out and get the fall clean up finished. 

 

Wordless Wednesday

The same but different

Location, location, location! That's the mantra of realtors but it's a concept that holds true in gardening as well. Obviously where you live in the country or the world has the major influence on your garden. But then it becomes very personal and intimate. Plants growing near each other can look or perform quite differently depending on soil, moisture, light — any number of factors.

This is Caxex siderosticha 'Lemon Zest' growing in rather dry shade under a Redbud. It is actually turning more yellow as fall advances. It typically turns a limey green in summer in this shady location.

Here is the same plant in more sun so it holds its yellow color through most of the season just starting to turn brown from cold weather and a few dry weeks. 

My newest patch of Epimedium rubrum are a bright green during the growing season and are turning a warmish red orange at the moment. 

The mother planting (below) is across the driveway from the group shown in the photo above. This group has been growing many years longer than the first group with much darker green leaves and more mahogany fall coloration. It has surprised me how different the two groups look even during the growing season. I would not have thought the amount of light they get was that much different as I am guessing that is the main reason for the variation. 

The foliage of Epimedium x youngianum 'Baby Doll Pink' has turned a lovely yellow unlike any of the other Epimediums I grow.

This group of three Epimediums, including E. 'Red Queen', are growing under a big old Arborvita tree and never color though they get plenty of flowers. 

 

Ferns for fall

My neighbor has a swath of fiddlehead ferns that always look stunning in the spring when they emerge. But let a whiff of cold air touch them in the fall and they turn brown and crumple over in a minute. But there are an amazing number of ferns that can make it through light frosts and some that will look good as the snow melts off of them at the end of winter. Autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora), Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) and Hart's Tongue fern (Asplenium scolopendrium) are all still looking quite good. 

The group below includes Dryopteris crassirhizoma on the left and Leatherwood fern (Dryopteris marginalia) on the right.  These are both growing in dry shade under a Scot's pine.

Leatherwood in another part of the garden

This is one of the first ferns I planted in the late 1990s but I am not sure what it is: Beech fern, Broad buckler fern or perhaps NY fern. These days I try to keep better records of what I've planted where. This grows outward in such a way that I have cut chunks off of it with no harm. It is a good 3 feet tall and stunning. Nothing seems to bother it. 

Look (between those two tree trunks on the right) at the statement the above fern makes when perennials all around it are already done for the season. All of the other greens in this view are evergreen shrubs like yew and box.

Adiantum venustum with Carex 'Bowles' Golden'. So delicate looking and so tough.

The Dryopteris and Polystichum fern families have lots of different varieties and are a good place to look for ferns that can stand up to rougher weather. 

Wednesday vignette

This may be my favorite color moment of the entire autumn display: Crocus pulchellus amid leaves from Acer pseudosieboldianum. The flowers are much more delicately colored and more fragile looking than they appear in the photo. They would look like they were done when it got cloudy and cold and then stand upright and open again in the warm sun. A pricey bulb but worth every penny. 

Look up, look down: Final fall color

Hamamelis virginiana, aka fall-blooming witch hazel, is putting on its annual show right now. But if you grow witch hazels then you know about their annoying habit of often flowering before they've dropped their leaves. Yellow flowers among large yellowing leaves are hard to enjoy when you can barely see them. I discovered these wispy blooms by accident when I glanced overhead to see if the big maples in the front garden still had any leaves left on them. Their show is over for the year; not so in the back garden.

Our paperbark maple (Acer griseum x nikoense) was aglow on at the end of last week. It is typically the last deciduous tree to color up in the fall.  

But it lost most of its leaves with an overnight cold spell. 

I have to admit I was rather shocked to come out in the morning to this scene.

Turns out the Moosewood maple did the same thing.

Moosewood, Acer pennsylvanicum, is known for it large leaves and butter yellow fall color. That's Carex socialis 'Coahoma' in the foreground. 

The yellow leaves at the rear are from one of our stripe bark maples, A. tegmentosum 'White Tigress'. These leaves are so large that I will try to rake them up as they will mat down in a way that can harm emerging plants in the spring. 

It rained on the weekend and this was the scene out the library window on Sunday morning. These sugar maple leaves all came from the tree in our neighbor's garden. Looking at this view I guess we do still have more leaves that need to come down; namely the curly willow and the old apple tree. 

But the weather is definitely changing and it looks like the last fall cleanup is going to be done during much colder weather. Ugh. 

IVOM: Final fall color

I've been raking and chopping leaves, cutting down soggy Hostas and blackened lily stems and generally getting the garden ready for winter. But there are still a few spots of bright color to bring indoors. Thalictrum sp. 'Black Stockings' is the only variety of the four tall Thalictrums that I grow that still has foliage on it and foliage that looks good. The leaves at the top of the stems  are this lovely soft yellow while the lower leaves are varying shades of green. I thought them too attractive not to enjoy their last burst of beauty indoors.

To see what other gardeners have put in a vase today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts our favorite floral meme.