"RED"buds, Kansas City's Premier Spring Flowering Tree

From Powell Gardens to across Greater Kansas City the Eastern Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) are in their glory. The flowers are not red but a blue-pink--like raspberry sherbet--a distinctly North American color. It is such a refreshing hue, complementing the emerging acid lime greens of spring. Underplant native blue wildflowers like violets, woodland phlox, Jacob's ladder, Virginia bluebells and blue-eyed-mary and you will make your planting sing. Redbuds are named "canadensis" because they were found west of the Appalachians (once all west of them was called "Canada.") They are a great plant that celebrates the spirit of America's heartland from the lower Midwest to the mid-South.

Here's a redbud you will meet on the way to the Powell Gardens chapel. The white flowering tree in the foreground is the Plant of Merit cultivar 'Royal White' and the best white flowering selection of "whitebud."

Here is a mix of wild and planted redbuds near the parking lot to the Powell Gardens chapel. A seedling flowering dogwood is just starting to bloom too (lower right). The chapel landscape at Powell Gardens is where we display every variety of redbud available and there are many new selections of this beautiful native plant.


Whitebuds (Cercis canadensis 'Alba' ) adorn the chapel landscape and always look best with a few "true" redbuds for contrast.


The pearl or blush pink flowering redbud is the cultivar 'Pauline Lily.' It is difficult to find in nurseries and usually available only at specialty mail-order nurseries. Look for our tree by the Chapel trolley stop.


This pale pink blooming redbud is the cultivar 'Rubye Atkinson' and can be seen on the meadow side of the walk to the chapel.

T
he redbud cultivar 'Tennessee Pink' has shocking true cherry pink flowers!


'Tennessee Pink' redbud close up!
Come out and see Powell Gardens' collection of redbuds and take a special moment to bask in the beauty of this most showy of our wildflowers. More about redbuds and what a fantastic landscape tree they are in a future blog.