"..like roses, only easy to care for, don’t have thorns and aren’t ugly when they aren’t blooming"

That is probably one of the five best quotes I have ever read in a garden article.

In case you missed Thursday's Home and Garden section from the NY Times, check out this wonderful story about rare camellias in southern Louisiana. 

winter's green

 Japanese Cedar (Cryptomeria Japonica 'Globosa') Sarah P. Duke Gardens terraces

I have been in hibernation mode for the last month or so both in the garden and on this garden blog. Life's busy, work's busy, and the weather has been dismal.  Things are looking up. I had a nephew born this week. The sun is starting to stick around after I get off work and half a dozen clumps of narcissus bulbs are showing their foliage in my herbaceous border. Sometimes, seeing this new growth is as exciting as watching the flowers unfold. 

In the next few weeks we will start noticing the occasional daffodil around town and the swelling buds and early blooms of  several choice flowering trees and shrubs: Japenese camellias, flowering apricots, Chinese witch hazels, and quince.  But before we wish the mood ring beyond winter, we really should let our appreciation for the evergreens stick around.  One of the best places I know to see what evergreens can do for a garden are the terraces at Sarah P. Duke Gardens. The staff does a wonderful job placing golden yuccas, colorful violas, and sivery cardoon plants throughout the beds.  However, it is the cedars, the cypresses, the broad leaf evergreen shrubs, the plum yews, and the junipers that provide balance. Of course they are there for the structure. But they are beautiful by themselves.

'easter rose' blooms on fourth of july... experts really not that surprised

Okay, I've long bragged on the merits of the Japanese kerria as a tough and good-looking shrub for filling in those hard to plant part sun/part shade places where everyone seems to think only a nandina will do. And one of those bragging points was that it often blooms again "sporadically" throughout the spring and summer. But this shrub on Duke's west campus (see my post from earlier this year) really has me jealous. My home-grown version isn't coming close to another flush of yellow flowers.

Not a true rose and not really from Japan...or Texas

Pictured at right-double flowered Kerria japonica planted on the east side of Duke’s Nello Teer Engineering Library.

Kerria japonica is one of my favorite shrubs. It is in the rose family and has a wonderful litany of common names (kerry rose, Easter rose, Japanese kerria, Japanese tea rose, and yellow rose of Texas).  It is an old-fashioned plant that folks love to divide and give away. One of the reasons for its popularity is the early flowers. They bloom just before before the waves of roses, dogwoods, and azaleas grab everyone’s attention around here. 

In the landscape, you can find it growing in partly shady to sunny spots. Mine does fine with that difficult morning-shade-afternoon-sizzle equation which often ruins azaleas and hydrangeas in central and southeastern North Carolina. They can form a thicket up to six feet tall but unlike forsythia or winter honeysuckle, it does not seem to turn into a monster. After it loses its leaves in the fall the thin crayon-green branches are very attractive and airy. It survives drought once established and can be found in double-flowering and single flowered forms. Old thickets of kerria have a tendency to look a bit scraggly if the oldest canes are not cut down. Like a lot of other flowering shrubs, any pruning should be done after the blooms give out.

Call it kerry rose or yellow rose of easter or whatever you want to; Kerria japonica  would make a very popular shrub if homeowners could find it more easily ….or if more of us gave some away from our own yards. Here is a link to Chapel Hill’s Niche Gardens’ online catalog. It shows the beautiful single flowered version that they have for sale. 

in the forecast? yellow flowers

Around here the daffodil show will begin to capture a lot of attention over the next couple of weeks.....just in time for some warmer weather to kick in.  Amidst the daffodil fever, folks may forget about the humble winter honeysuckle that I profiled over a month ago. Now that it has opened almost all of its blooms the wind can carry its fragrance twenty yards or more. Here is picture I took this morning. Winter honeysuckle (aka 'sweet breath of spring') blooms on new wood. Since this shrub was pruned dramatically last spring, there was a lot of  rank growth last summer and therefore an extra supply of pale yellowish-white flowers this year.

bright branches

Chinese witchhazels were blooming in Sarah Duke Gardens this past week. These pics were taken Wednesday.
This grouping is on the grassy slope behind the large Dawn redwood-just north of the terraces. I thought the images could be appreciated on a cold and soggy midwinter day.

one of the best evergreen screens for the South

These photos were taken today in the perennial allee at Sarah Duke Gardens. Most of the visitors do not notice the sasanqua camellias 11 months out of the year since they form the dark green backdrop for showier shrubs, yuccas, vines, tropicals, herbs, and native perennials. But today, this utilitarian backbone is smothered in a galaxy of light pink blooms.
It is a shame we don't see more privacy screens made up of these wonderful shrubs, which are native to Asia but have been a part of Southern landscapes for well over a hundred years. Compared to the cold weather blossoms of c. japonicas, c. sasanqua flowers may not be as impressive, but they can take more direct sun and drought. This particular variety is called Maiden's Blush.

Hibiscus mutabilis

Here is a large flowering shrub at Sarah Duke Gardens. Commonly called a cotton rose or Confederate rose hibiscus, it can grow over eight feet tall and wide in the summer. This is an old-fashioned favorite that will die back in the winters around here. But it springs back like a perennial. Late summer and fall blooms are always a premium in my book and this giver is just getting started.

a contract with contractor's shrubs

Last Tuesday I trolled the parking lot at a home improvement super store. By the curb a lawn and garden sign advertised: CONTRACTOR’S SHRUBS. For less than $10 a pop you could walk away with some smallish evergreen bushes—it seemed like a good deal. But the buyer should beware.

A lot of these hollies and cypresses and boxwoods get stuck next to foundations and walkways and parking lots at new construction sites where you have to wonder if anyone is thinking ahead. For example, a Buford Holly (Ilex cornuta Bufordi) will grow up to be a small tree if you let it. I should know. Under my home’s front windows is a collection of decades old bufordis that have to be kept in check almost weekly from May through September.

The result are tiresome green lollipops that are forced to grow no more than five or six feet tall. If I gave up and let them go? They would each look like this specimen on Duke’s campus, probably planted outside the North Building in 1958 when the structure was newly built.

By the way- if you are interested, there are dwarf versions of Buford Hollies and other evergreen bushes out there.