Planting Trees and Shrubs

 


Early Days
A Few Weeks Ago

I write a lot about the progress of my pollinator landscape. It's easy to do as wildflowers and native grasses mature quickly and have an almost-immediate impact on a landscape. That's not so true of woody plants. Most of us (and certainly not me) cannot afford to purchase trees and shrubs that are in sizes near maturity, so we add plants that are often in 3- or even 1-gallon sizes. In my landscape, I have splurged a couple of times and added a 7-gallon, but nothing larger (or more expensive) than this. For a few others, I have grown them from seed.
It takes a real optimist to plant trees. It is said that the best time to plant one is 20 years ago and that the next best time is today. As I am renting here, it seems even more foolish to be adding plants that I may never sit in the shade beneath.  Foolish or not, I have received great joy from my plantings and as they gain a bit more size and maturity each year, the birds and other wildlife use them more. Only a few have flowered so far - meaning that even less are producing the fruit that will some day be an indispensable aspect of my landscape. The flowers for most will be critical to pollinators in the spring, the fruit and invertebrates will feed birds and the branches of some will support nests. That day is in the future, but today I take pleasure in watching it develop. I anticipate next spring as many should bloom for the first time. I've added nearly every one of my favorite flowering woody plants somewhere in the yard. The two-winged silverbells, serviceberries, plums and southern crabapple had a few scattered flowers last spring. I expect a good deal more this one. some in Florida say that there are no seasons here. It's because they don't have native plants that flower at set seasons.  My landscape will exude seasonality...

People ask me to list what I have planted in my landscape. Here's a list of woody plants that I've added in the last 2 years somewhere on the property.


Native Trees & Shrubs – Paragon Home

Aesculus pavia                                                      Red buckeye

Amelanchier arborea                                          Downy serviceberry

Amorpha crenulata                                             Crenulate leadplant

Amorpha fruticosa                                               Leadplant/false indigo

Amorpha herbacea                                             Clusterspike false indigo

Asimina parviflora                                                Smallflower pawpaw

Asimina reticulata                                                Flatwoods pawpaw

Asimina triloba                                                     Common pawpaw

Celtis pallida                                                          Spiny hackberry

Chionanthus virginicus                                        Fringe tree

Crataegus crus-galli                                             Cockspur haw

Crataegus flava                                                     Summer haw

Crataegus lassa                                                     Sandhill haw

Crataegus lepida                                                  Dwarf haw

Crataegus marshallii                                            Parsley haw

Crataegus phaenopyrum                                    Washington haw

Crataegus sp.                                                        “Red haw”

Crataegus sp.                                                        “Riefler haw”

Crataegus spathulata                                           Littlehip haw

Crataegus uniflora                                               One-flowered haw

Crataegus viridis                                                   Green haw

Garberia heterophylla                                        Garberia

Halesia carolina                                                    Carolina siverbell

Halesia diptera var. magniflora                         Two-winged silverbell

Hamamelis virginiana                                          American witchhazel

Hamelia patens                                                     Firebush

Kalmia latifolia                                                      Mountain laurel

Malus angustifolia                                                Southern crabapple

Myrcianthes fragrans                                      Simpson's stopper                     

Persea palustris                                                    Silk bay

Prunus geniculata                                                Scrub plum

Prunus umbellata                                                 Flatwoods plum

Psychotria nervosa                                              Wild coffee

Rhododendron alabamense                              Alabama azalea

Rhododendron austrinum                                  Florida flame azalea

Rhododendron canescens                                 Pinkster azalea

Rhododendron flammeum                                 Flame azalea (Not native to FL)

Senna ligustrina                                                    Privet cassia

Senna mexicana var. chapmanii                        Bahama cassia

Sideroxylon alachuense                                     Silver buckthorn

Sideroxylon celastrina                                        Saffron plum

Sideroxylon lanuginosa                                       Gum bully

Sideroxylon rufotomentosa                               Rusty bumelia

Sideroxylon tenax                                                Tough bumelia

Stewartia malacodendron                                  Silky camellia

Tilia americana                                                     Carolina basswood

Vaccinium arboreum                                           Sparkleberry

Viburnum acerifolium                                         Mapleleaf viburnum

Viburnum dentatum                                            Arrowwood viburnum

Viburnum rufidulum                                            Rusty viburnum





Comments

  1. Diann DimitriSeptember 19, 2020 at 9:53 AM

    Spacing between plants looks fairly close. How did you determine that?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hawthorn HillSeptember 19, 2020 at 10:40 AM

    It is a bit close, but on purpose. Except for the basswood, everything in the photo (the deciduous woodland planting) is an understory species that is unlikely to get taller than `15-20 feet - in 10-20 years. Planting a bit close makes the plants grow more upright and that is what I prefer as it allows for more diversity in the same space. I may eventually have to do some limited pruning as well, but I've planned for that. Thanks for reading and commenting.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ethics of Collecting Seed

Image
I've been writing lately about seeds and using them to create what is often called a pollinator meadow. A great many of the plants in my new landscape were grown from seed. Frankly, I have always loved sowing seeds and watching them sprout. I started in early childhood and I've been doing it since. It's rewarding and the anticipation of waiting for seeds to sprout is difficult to match unless you play the lottery. I rarely purchase seeds. I collect them. When I can, I purchase a few plants of a species I wish to add to my landscape and I then collect their seed after they bloom. If a plant doesn't prosper sufficiently to set seed for me, it is not a plant I wish to continue to grow. Over the years, I've tried a great many plants that I've failed to adequately provide for. Today in my landscape, I'm trying a few that I've never tried before. The exceptions come from plants that are not available in the trade. To grow these from seed, I need to collect ...
Read more

Wildflower Meadows - The Importance of Grasses

Image
A Natural Wildflower "Meadow" - Apalachicola National Forest I grew up in the prairie Midwest and was fortunate to have been caught up in the prairie restoration movement that blazed brightly in the last few decades of this past century. Very little of our original prairie ecosystems remain as the rich prairie soils were quickly converted to agricultural uses as European settlers swarmed their way over the continent.  These ecosystems are extremely diverse, regardless of where they occur. From the tall-grass prairies of the Midwest to the rockland prairies of the Mid-South and the true dry prairie systems here in Florida where I now reside, there are several universal characteristics - they are some of the most species diverse systems in the world and they are dominated by grasses. Grasses, in all their many shapes and forms, are what form the foundation of any "meadow." That must also be true for all the "wildflower meadows" I see extolled on s...
Read more

A Pollinator Garden is More than Wildflowers

Image
A natural grass-dominated meadow in the shade Splitbeard bluestem - Andropogon ternarius Lopsided Indiangrass - Sorghastrum secundum Sites on social media that are promoting pollinator gardens are rife with posts about wildflowers. Folks seeking to make their landscapes pollinator friendly seem to be almost-universally focused on wildflowers. What these well-meaning people seem to not understand is the importance of native grasses. Meadows, prairies, and other wildflower-dominated systems are mostly grass. Grasses form the backbone of every one of these plant communities. It isn't the wildflowers. They simply provide most of the color - but a living landscape is not about color, it's about creating habitat, and this habitat requires us to incorporate native grasses. It is true that the vast majority of grasses, and their graminoid relatives, are wind pollinated. They do not provide nectar and pollen for the most part, but despite that they are significant. More s...
Read more