Good trees for small spaces, summer flowering favourites and hardworking hostas were some of the featured plant subjects in consumer gardening magazines this summer.
Skinny Trees, Hostas and Best Loved Blooming Perennials
Good trees for small spaces, summer flowering favourites and hardworking hostas were some of the featured plant subjects in consumer gardening magazines this summer.
Canadian Gardening, June 2005, has an interesting article entitled Skinny Trees for Tight Spaces featuring slender specimens to grow in tiny gardens or even in balcony containers. It recommends slender evergreens such as Lawson False Cypress, Serbian Spruce and ‘Yellow Ribbon’ White Cedar; flowering trees ‘Madonna’ and ‘Pink Spires’ crabapples, ‘Capital’ Callery Pear and ‘Amanogawa’ Japanese Flowering Cherry; good trees for fall colour ‘Newton Sentry’ Sugar Maple, Upright European Aspen and ‘Tower’ Poplar; as well as trees with coloured foliage such as ‘Dawyck Gold’ and ‘Purple Fountain Beech.
In the same issue, Canadian Gardening profiles lupines, foxtail lilies (Eremurus spp.) and hydrangeas as all time summer flowering favourites.
Canadian Living, July 2005, which contains a large gardening section, concentrates on clematis for Canadian gardens. Among the 15 hardy, easy-care varieties recommended are: C. terniflora with clusters of small, fragrant blossoms in September and October; C. ‘Ernest Markham’ with bright magenta flowers all summer; C. ‘Etoile Violette’ with deep purple cascading flowers from July to October; C. ‘Huldine’ with saucer-shaped white flowers that bloom all summer in sun or part shade; C. ‘Ville de Lyon’ with deep pink flowers from July to October in sun, part sun or shade; and C. ‘Golden Tiara’ with nodding garden bells from June to August in sun or shade.
Canadian Living also features three exotic late summer blooming bulbs including Nerine bowdenii ‘Nikita’ which has spidery pale pink blooms; Crinum x powellii that produces fragrant pink blooms in late summer and Gladiolus callianthus (Acidanthera) with a starry, deep red eye at the centre of each scented white flower.
The Spring 2005 issue of Ontario Gardener features hosta as a garden essential especially for shade, zeroing in on American Hosta Society annual winners such as H. ‘Striptease’ which grows to a height of 36 inches (65 cm) and diameter of 36 inches (90 cm) chosen this year for its green leaves with yellow to white margins; 2004 winner H. ‘Sum & Substance’, reaching heights of 30 inches (75 cm) and a diameter of 48 inches (120 cm) boasting large puckered chartreuse leaves; 2003 winner H. ‘Regal Splendor’ with blue green leaves edged in creamy white and growing as high as 30 inches (75 cm) and as wide as 36 inches (65 cm); and 2002 winner H. ‘Guacamole’ with shiny gold leaves featuring irregular green margins growing on a tidy mound 24 inches (60 cm) and 48 inches (120 cm) wide.
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