Staying home for the ginkgo

Margaret Moseley has dug in for the duration, and nothing can pry her away from home for the near future.

"Everybody who knows me knows I will not leave home this time of year until the ginkgo leaves have fallen," says the 95-year-old, whose garden has been the subject of television shows and has appeared in magazines, newspapers and books.  "I'm not going anywhere, even to get my hair fixed."

What is this about?  Margaret planted a ginkgo tree right outside her large sun porch around 30 years ago. "It was about the size of a broom handle, about three feet tall," she recalls.  "It's now over 40 feet high.  My friend Cy says they are slow growing, but mine just took off."  Every November, the leaves turn a bright gold and then all at once, within an hour's time, they fall to the ground.

"It starts with just one leaf coming down," she says.  "And then, there will be three, and that's when I know that they are all about to fall.  If you see that one leaf, you'd better find a comfortable chair because you're about to see a show.  One of my daughters happened to be over here one year when the leaves started falling.  She went out there and stood while they just rained down on her.  She couldn't believe it."

Several years ago, a pine tree crashed down in Margaret's yard, taking out one side of the ginkgo.   "Everybody in Atlanta knew it, because I called them up and told them about it.  I cried for days.  But now, you can't even tell it ever happened."

Yesterday, as I was driving around, I noticed the ginkgo trees around town had turned yellow.  This morning I called Margaret to check on the progress because last night, it rained, and today is gray and windy and cold.

"It looks like the sun is shining out there, it's so bright overhead," she told me.  "It's the prettiest thing you've ever seen."

Margaret estimates that the leaves still have at least a week and a half, because some of them are still green.

"My daughter has invited me to Thanksgiving at her house, and I've already warned her.  If the ginkgo leaves haven't fallen, I'm not coming.  I wait a whole year to watch this happen, and I'm not going to take a chance.  I'll just stay here and eat a peanut butter sandwich."

Note:  I took the above photograph several years ago at my church, Peachtree Road United Methodist in Atlanta.  I'm taking my camera this Sunday in hopes of capturing the tree before the leaves fall.

Staying home for the ginkgo

Margaret Moseley has dug in for the duration, and nothing can pry her away from home for the near future.

"Everybody who knows me knows I will not leave home this time of year until the ginkgo leaves have fallen," says the 95-year-old, whose garden has been the subject of television shows and has appeared in magazines, newspapers and books.  "I'm not going anywhere, even to get my hair fixed."

What is this about?  Margaret planted a ginkgo tree right outside her large sun porch around 30 years ago. "It was about the size of a broom handle, about three feet tall," she recalls.  "It's now over 40 feet high.  My friend Cy says they are slow growing, but mine just took off."  Every November, the leaves turn a bright gold and then all at once, within an hour's time, they fall to the ground.

"It starts with just one leaf coming down," she says.  "And then, there will be three, and that's when I know that they are all about to fall.  If you see that one leaf, you'd better find a comfortable chair because you're about to see a show.  One of my daughters happened to be over here one year when the leaves started falling.  She went out there and stood while they just rained down on her.  She couldn't believe it."

Several years ago, a pine tree crashed down in Margaret's yard, taking out one side of the ginkgo.   "Everybody in Atlanta knew it, because I called them up and told them about it.  I cried for days.  But now, you can't even tell it ever happened."

Yesterday, as I was driving around, I noticed the ginkgo trees around town had turned yellow.  This morning I called Margaret to check on the progress because last night, it rained, and today is gray and windy and cold.

"It looks like the sun is shining out there, it's so bright overhead," she told me.  "It's the prettiest thing you've ever seen."

Margaret estimates that the leaves still have at least a week and a half, because some of them are still green.

"My daughter has invited me to Thanksgiving at her house, and I've already warned her.  If the ginkgo leaves haven't fallen, I'm not coming.  I wait a whole year to watch this happen, and I'm not going to take a chance.  I'll just stay here and eat a peanut butter sandwich."

Note:  I took the above photograph several years ago at my church, Peachtree Road United Methodist in Atlanta.  I'm taking my camera this Sunday in hopes of capturing the tree before the leaves fall.

Obsessed with an American native

If only I'd had my camera with me on Monday afternoon at approximately 5:15 Eastern Standard Time, I would have finally gotten my picture.

Every day for three months, I've pulled out of my driveway to admire my favorite native tree, the sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum), in its glorious autumn color.  On my property, I have several sourwoods, but they are all very tall, so I don't have a prayer of getting a decent photograph.

But the one on the edge of the neighbor's woodland, right across from my mailbox, is within the camera's zoom capacity.  You just have to be there at the right time, because if the sun is not shining at the exact angle, it doesn't work.  I came close with the above photograph, but the ideal time would have been that moment when the afternoon sun was shining on the luminous red-orange leaves, and you could see the cream colored flowers still clinging from the month of June when they first appeared.

I don't recall what year it was that I discovered the beauty of the sourwood tree, but I was late to the game.  Once I saw there was a tree that bloomed in June with cream-colored, bell-shaped panicles on glossy green leaves, I couldn't believe I'd never noticed it before.  And then, I started seeing them everywhere, especially on trips to north Georgia (sourwoods are native over a wide range of the eastern U.S., from Virginia and Ohio over to southern Illinois and down to the Gulf Coast).

The sourwood is the first tree to turn, usually by August.  The color persists well into November, so you have months of fall color that is either the color above or deep red that is sometimes splotched with purple (like one of the trees I stalk up on Ridgewood Road).

Speaking of the latter, if my dog knew to be embarrassed, he would have been ducking down the other day while I was parked on the side of the road.  I kept dashing out into the street to get my shot.  It really wasn't any good.  Cars kept coming, and it was beginning to get dangerous.  Plus, I noticed that people weren't exactly smiling as they passed by.  Surely they would have been more cordial if I could have told them that this was a special tree, one they'd be obsessed with, too, once they'd come to appreciate its great beauty.

More facts about sourwoods:  Sourwood honey is highly prized; the panicles are fragrant;  it is also known as lily of the valley tree; if you travel along the back roads of north Georgia in late June, you'll notice the trees in bloom; it's said if you chew the leaves, it relieves dry-mouth, but since there's a laxative effect, that may not be a good idea.  Mike Dirr says this:  "Truly an all season ornamental...many gardeners feel, among native trees, this is second only to Flowering Dogwood; certainly one of my favorite trees...".

Obsessed with an American native

If only I'd had my camera with me on Monday afternoon at approximately 5:15 Eastern Standard Time, I would have finally gotten my picture.

Every day for three months, I've pulled out of my driveway to admire my favorite native tree, the sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum), in its glorious autumn color.  On my property, I have several sourwoods, but they are all very tall, so I don't have a prayer of getting a decent photograph.

But the one on the edge of the neighbor's woodland, right across from my mailbox, is within the camera's zoom capacity.  You just have to be there at the right time, because if the sun is not shining at the exact angle, it doesn't work.  I came close with the above photograph, but the ideal time would have been that moment when the afternoon sun was shining on the luminous red-orange leaves, and you could see the cream colored flowers still clinging from the month of June when they first appeared.

I don't recall what year it was that I discovered the beauty of the sourwood tree, but I was late to the game.  Once I saw there was a tree that bloomed in June with cream-colored, bell-shaped panicles on glossy green leaves, I couldn't believe I'd never noticed it before.  And then, I started seeing them everywhere, especially on trips to north Georgia (sourwoods are native over a wide range of the eastern U.S., from Virginia and Ohio over to southern Illinois and down to the Gulf Coast).

The sourwood is the first tree to turn, usually by August.  The color persists well into November, so you have months of fall color that is either the color above or deep red that is sometimes splotched with purple (like one of the trees I stalk up on Ridgewood Road).

Speaking of the latter, if my dog knew to be embarrassed, he would have been ducking down the other day while I was parked on the side of the road.  I kept dashing out into the street to get my shot.  It really wasn't any good.  Cars kept coming, and it was beginning to get dangerous.  Plus, I noticed that people weren't exactly smiling as they passed by.  Surely they would have been more cordial if I could have told them that this was a special tree, one they'd be obsessed with, too, once they'd come to appreciate its great beauty.

More facts about sourwoods:  Sourwood honey is highly prized; the panicles are fragrant;  it is also known as lily of the valley tree; if you travel along the back roads of north Georgia in late June, you'll notice the trees in bloom; it's said if you chew the leaves, it relieves dry-mouth, but since there's a laxative effect, that may not be a good idea.  Mike Dirr says this:  "Truly an all season ornamental...many gardeners feel, among native trees, this is second only to Flowering Dogwood; certainly one of my favorite trees...".

A hybrid camellia through war and peace

What irony.

This beautiful hybrid camellia,  C. x 'Showa-No-Sakae', blooms in fall along with the sasanquas.  It was named in honor of Emperor Hirohito of Japan (1901-1989), meaning Glory of the Showa (Showa indicating the Era of Enlightened Peace beginning with the ascent of the emperor in 1926).  It is actually a very old Chinese/Japanese hybrid which was brought to Europe by Dutch traders in the mid-19th century.  It was officially named in Japan in 1928.

So, where is the irony in all this?  Probably in my mind, as someone who was born four years after Pearl Harbor and who spent her early childhood years being terrified that the Japanese would attack us again.  Maybe it was the fact that so many war scenes were shown at the movies.  Or, perhaps it was the long summer days my brother, three years my elder, would invent war games and terrify me, telling me that the plane that had just passed over our house had an orange sun painted on the wings.

But that was long ago, and really the only irony is that this innocent flower, which is named for "enlightened peace", lived through some of the worst times of war - the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and and then Pearl Harbor and the horrifying atrocities of World War II.

Let me assure you that my fear of the Japanese and the names Hirohito and General Tojo - the latter much scarier - only lasted from about the first through the third grades.  My first grade class picture shows us all wearing dog tags, when we practiced what to do in the event a bomb was dropped.  I didn't know any better that it was the new Cold War and the Soviets that I should be afraid of, and not the Japanese.  

I am very off base here and am rambling indeed, but this thought process started when my 95-year-old friend Margaret Moseley pointed out this flower in her garden (she did not hesitate a beat in telling me the name of it, spelling it out for me to write down).  I'm always interested in the provenance of a plant, and I immediately raced home and looked up the history of 'Showa-No-Sakae'.

The important fact here is that 'Showa-No-Sakae' is an excellent plant to espalier against a low wall.  Some of the flowers on Margaret's shrub were semi-double with bright yellow stamens.  Others were very double, like the one pictured above.  All were beautiful and were more reminiscent of the sixty-odd years of peace we've had with Japan since the end of World War II than any of the times that came before.

A hybrid camellia through war and peace

What irony.

This beautiful hybrid camellia,  C. x 'Showa-No-Sakae', blooms in fall along with the sasanquas.  It was named in honor of Emperor Hirohito of Japan (1901-1989), meaning Glory of the Showa (Showa indicating the Era of Enlightened Peace beginning with the ascent of the emperor in 1926).  It is actually a very old Chinese/Japanese hybrid which was brought to Europe by Dutch traders in the mid-19th century.  It was officially named in Japan in 1928.

So, where is the irony in all this?  Probably in my mind, as someone who was born four years after Pearl Harbor and who spent her early childhood years being terrified that the Japanese would attack us again.  Maybe it was the fact that so many war scenes were shown at the movies.  Or, perhaps it was the long summer days my brother, three years my elder, would invent war games and terrify me, telling me that the plane that had just passed over our house had an orange sun painted on the wings.

But that was long ago, and really the only irony is that this innocent flower, which is named for "enlightened peace", lived through some of the worst times of war - the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and and then Pearl Harbor and the horrifying atrocities of World War II.

Let me assure you that my fear of the Japanese and the names Hirohito and General Tojo - the latter much scarier - only lasted from about the first through the third grades.  My first grade class picture shows us all wearing dog tags, when we practiced what to do in the event a bomb was dropped.  I didn't know any better that it was the new Cold War and the Soviets that I should be afraid of, and not the Japanese.  

I am very off base here and am rambling indeed, but this thought process started when my 95-year-old friend Margaret Moseley pointed out this flower in her garden (she did not hesitate a beat in telling me the name of it, spelling it out for me to write down).  I'm always interested in the provenance of a plant, and I immediately raced home and looked up the history of 'Showa-No-Sakae'.

The important fact here is that 'Showa-No-Sakae' is an excellent plant to espalier against a low wall.  Some of the flowers on Margaret's shrub were semi-double with bright yellow stamens.  Others were very double, like the one pictured above.  All were beautiful and were more reminiscent of the sixty-odd years of peace we've had with Japan since the end of World War II than any of the times that came before.

The guru chooses a tree

Like so many followers of Dr. Michael A. Dirr,  I own a well-worn copy of his 1990 edition of Manual of Woody Landscape Plants.  He's written more books since then, but I've practically memorized many of his comments in his original tome about certain favorite plants.

For instance, when I see a katsura tree, I know what he says about this Japanese native.  "...if I could use only one tree this would be my first tree..."  

If you've ever seen this tree in spring, summer or fall, you can understand why.  The new spring leaves are a striking reddish purple.  In summer the color has changed to a bluish green.  By mid-October, the color is yellowish green with a tinge of apricot.  

Plant explorer Ozzie Johnson grows the weeping form right outside the back window of his home in Atlanta.  I first saw that tree 17 years ago in fall.  I should say I caught its fragrance before I saw it.  As fall progresses the leaves emit a smell that reminds me of cotton candy at a fair.  Dr. Dirr calls it a "delightful spicy (cinnamon) brown sugar odor."  

Anyway, this past June when I was in Ozzie's garden, I didn't even recognize the tree because it presented itself as a curtain of beautiful leaves at eye level.  I had to look straight up to see the top.  The branches cascade down like a fountain.  It is breathtaking.

But even the more rounded form of this tree is beautiful.  I caught the one above in October.  Unfortunately, I caught my shadow there at the bottom and someone's red sweater over to the side, but you get the idea of how this tree literally glows in the sun.

Cercidiphyllum japonicum  (sorry, I type in italicized words, but they don't appear so in the finished blog)

Deciduous; grows over a large part of the U.S., Zones 4-8; fast growing; plant in full sun and keep evenly watered until established.  Be mindful of watering during periods of drought.

Dr. Dirr has noted outstanding specimens of the tree near the town square in Amherst, Massachusetts, at Callaway Gardens in middle Georgia, at the Morris Arboretum in suburban Philadelphia, and on the campuses of Michigan State, the University of Illinois, Purdue University, the University of Georgia and the the University of Maine.