The Infamous Forsythia

It's such a delight to be living in a new (but altogether familiar) city.  While I loved living in New York, the plant life there was getting a bit rote.  Whereas now, every time I go for a run, I'm inspecting new palettes, making note of when to return to see a particular plant in flower or fall color.  For example, on Monday, I decided I'd come back to Hains Point to see this Magnolia x soulangiana in full bloom -- as you can see it's just about to open. 

 

But today, we'll talk about the plant to the right, Forsythia.  Most likely, Fosythia x intermedia.  I know that Forsythia is a very common plant when my spell check recognizes it as a valid word and of course, none of us needed that to testify to the plant's popularity.  Almost unknown until the 18th Century, Forsythias became popular after western botanist Carl Peter Thunberg noted the plant growing in a Japanese garden. Its early spring flowers, fast growth and general bulletproof nature have aided in its surge in popularity since then.

But is it really worth it?  Does adding this to a landscape for a cheap thrill in March validate its scraggly appearance the rest of the year?  Probably not.  To quote Dirr (for the second day in a row!), "Upright and arching canes will give it the appearance that the roots were stuckin an electric socket; always needs grooming, one of th emost overrated and over-used shrubs!" 

Indeed. 

But, a nostalgic part of me likes the plant, as I remember it growing everywhere when I was a kid.  Its role as a bellwether for spring is almost more iconic or mythical than it is actual; I mean, there's plenty of other plants that herald spring, but it seems everyone knows this one.  That said, I doubt I would ever put it in a design.  Unless... my apartment here has a small balcony and I'm considering placing an espalier plant on the brick wall that faces the glass door that leads to the space.  Websites indicate this plant espaliers well, but photos of it are lacking.  I may have to consider using this.   Any thoughts?

Red Maple

I did a quick tally on my archives at this site, as well as on NYPAOS and realize I have posted about a grand total of seven maple species: Acer griseum (paperbark maple), A. capillipes (snakebark maple), A. palmatum (Japanese maple) and A. pseudoplatanus (sycamore maple) here on Planted Cloud, and A. platanoides (Norway maple), A. saccharum (sugar maple) and A. campestre (hedge maple) on NYPAOS.

 

And yet, I've never mentioned Acer rubrum, or red maple (AKA: swamp maple), which is one of my favorite of the genus.  While the fall color is highly variable (despite the common name, the leaves on this species sometimes aren't red, but yellow and orange, too), I love this plant for its spring flowers.  The photo above was taken about two weeks ago.  It's of a 25 year old specimen at my folks' place.  As you can see, the new stems are red -- they turn this color in winter/fall -- and the buds are fattening up.

 

Here's the same tree, two weeks later.  The buds have flowered into tiny puffballs of marginally diminutive flowers of petals, stamens and pistils.  The tree is monecious, which means that there are female and male specimens of the tree.  Which is a wonderful segue way for me to implore you all to pick up a copy of Dirr. At first glance, his reference book is pretty dry.  But when you really read through all his descriptions you pick up wonderful passages like the following: 

I have assessed the peculiar sexual preferences of this species -- actually quite kinky for in a give population of seedlings staminate, pistillate, monoecious and monecious with hermaphrodite (bisexual) flowers occur; an interesting anecdote concerns male trees in a 25-tree popularion on the Georgia campus that grow much faster than their seed bearing sisters; my supposition...so much stored carbohydrate is required for fruit formation that vegetative growth is reduced.  

It's simply not often enough that one employs the term 'kinky' in reference to a tree!

Anyway, back to the tree.  In addition to being highly variable in fall color, red maples differ greatly in their cold tolerance, depending on where they were first grown as seedlings.  A seedling from the south may not perform well at all in northern climes and vice versa.  These are reasons that there's a tremendous market for red maple cultivars ('Armstrong,' 'Autumn Glory' and 'October Glory' are a few classics).  Indeed, if your client wants red fall color on a red maple guaranteed, you don't want to take your chances with generic nursery stock.