The Holiday Season's Garden

Powell Gardens is brimming with flowers, foliage and fruit that make this season bright.

The Conservatory and its Victorian-themed palate is full of unique Poinsettias and companion plants in a beautiful design by Horticulturist Anne Wildeboor. Here Poinsettia 'Winter Rose Marble' & 'Premium White' is set off by Diamond Frost Euphorbia and Pink Polka-dot Plant. If you are in the market for unique poinsettias, Perennial Gifts (our gift shop) will have these for sale for you to take home.

Outside the last of the season greens are part of our masterful foliage display playing off their leave's beautiful colors and textures. This marvelous array of edibles was designed by Horticulturist Matt Bunch in the Heartland Harvest Garden's Villandry Quilt Garden in front of the barn. From left to right the mustard greens varieites are: 'Golden Frill', 'Purple Rain', 'Green Wave' and 'Garnet Giant.'

No, the gardening season does not end with a freeze! Many of the "greens" of the fall garden hold well into December with some kale hardy to near 10F. Make sure to walk to the barn on your Powell Gardens visit to see some of these beautiful compositions and be sure and hike (or ride on the elevator) up to the top of the silo for a bird's eye overview of the landscape.

No, this is not a "beached" starfish but a gorgeous bed of greens (purple 'Garnet Giant' mustard and green tops of radishes)

in the Villandry Garden. The unique fringed edge are 'Chinese Ornamental' peppers which, though killed by a freeze, create a gorgeous border in the winter landscape.

The screaming red berries of the Possumhaw or Deciduous Holly (Ilex decidua) always warm the soul on a winter garden walk. All berried hollies are female and require a male pollinator -- when we planted this fruiting plant in the Perennial Garden we forgot to plant a pollinator and it still fruited! I thought we might have the first self-fruitful possumhaw but then we discovered a wild male plant in the woods nearby.

This Prairie Rose (Rosa setigera) in the Apple Celebration Court is also loaded with beautiful deep red hips. It is a companion planting to the apples and makes the garden beautiful all through winter.

Prickly-pears like this wild Bigroot Prickly Pear (Opuntia macrorhiza) draping over the living wall on the Island Garden are great for winter interest in the garden. The companion reddish foliage is from the Hardy Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) used as a colorful companion plant.

The Island Garden is choc full of neat foliage plant treats like this Angelina Sedum (Sedum reflexum) which in winter has orange hi-lights.

Angelina Sedum combines well with other evergreen plants like silver Santolina (back left), Candytuft (back right) and fine forest green creeping thyme (front left) and rich green six-sided sedum (front right). All these grow on top of the Island Garden's living wall.

Snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii) have already made their appearance on the Island Garden! Perhaps the severe drought of fall followed by copious rains fooled them into thinking it was spring. At any rate we sure enjoy these cold hardy, floral gems whenever they appear.

Sweet Violets (Viola odorata) are also in bloom with their intensely sweet perfume. They are awesome edible flowers with a sweet floral taste that can really make a salad sing in this season.
These were photographed on the east side of the Island Garden but they are also sweetening up the Kitchen Garden south of the barn in the Heartland Harvest Garden and a few other secret locations around the garden--your nose will find them before your eyes.

These flowers, foliage and fruit await your discovery on a holiday walk at Powell Gardens. Take a break from the hustle and bustle and discover the beauties of our winter garden.

Post Blizzard Views

Wow! I never thought I would see this much snow in Greater Kansas City. The blizzard of February 1, 2011 dumped 14" of snow on Powell Gardens. We are open for visitors and we hope you will take time to experience this truly rare event.

The Visitor Center's prairie style architecture looks marvelous in the snowy landscape.

The Heartland Harvest Garden also looks snug in its blanket of snow. The snowy landscape really depicts the feel of a farmstead on the rich Midwestern plains.

The parking lot is plowed and its landscape's trees are finally gaining some size to punctuate its broad expansive feel. This Powell Gardens landscape is evolving from sunny prairie to a savanna -- a prairie with scattered trees.

Evergreen, deciduous, marcescent: do you know what they all mean? The dark evergreens with picturesque form in this shot are evergreen 'Cannaertii' Redcedars (Juniperus virginiana). They hold their foliage year-round. The oaks just beyond them are Pin Oaks (Quercus palustris) and have hung on to their dead leaves: that's called marcescent. Small, young trees in the foreground and the old hickory in the background are bare now: deciduous.

These two young White Oaks (Quercus alba) are also marcescent. Many species of oaks do this and since they cannot speak, we can only speculate why. One theory is they held their leaves to make them less appealing for browsing animals to eat. Remember that great herds of elk once roamed throughout the Midwest and those old marcescent leaves were not appetizing and deterred them from munching on nutritious buds beneath. When most oaks get bigger they usually become completely deciduous.

The tree with the picturesque winter pods is a Kentucky Coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus). Its botanical name makes a lot of sense if you understand Latin: Gymno is naked -- because after its large multi-leaflet leaves drop the tree is very open with coarse twigs; appearing naked. Dioicus describes that the species is dioecious: meaning male and female flowers are on separate trees. The tree above is a female and her flowers form the pods with hard seeds. The tree to its immediate right is also a Kentucky Coffeetree but it is podless: it's a male, its flowers only produce pollen.

This scene in the drifts of snow in the parking lot also shows some plants with long black pods. These neat winter interest plants are Wild Senna (Senna / Cassia marilandica). Yes they are relatives of the coffeetrees in the same bean or legume family. The pods of this gorgeous perennial hold well all through the winter landscape unless a Wild Turkey finds them to snap them up for lunch.

This past fall I began to worry about a drought because it was SO dry. Now all the snowfall has provided wonderful moisture and protection to the gardens. Underneath the thick drifts of snow on the terrace garden beds lie happy little pansies and violas snug in their winter blanket.

Temperatures at KCI airport recorded -12F tying a record on Thursday morning. The low at Powell Garden's official site in a cold pocket was -11.5F, the coldest it's been here since 1997. The local low varied from around -5F to 10 degrees colder in open, low lying areas. This Victoria Southern Magnolia is one of the hardiest and should be fine through this cold snap. It always helps to know your microclimates and plant more tender plants in mild positions sheltered by buildings and existing mature trees.

Horticulturist Donna Covell is our Greenhouse Grower and her work keeps her in a much different environment! We have 9 greenhouses and they are full of flowers for spring at Powell Gardens and for our Centerpiece Display we will be installing next week at the Metropolitan Lawn and Garden Show at the American Royal in Kansas City.

Our Metropolitan Show Garden will be the 'Garden of Eat'n' showcasing edible plants and its 30 x 3o' vegetable garden was designed by Heartland Harvest Garden Horticulturist Matt Bunch who here is inspecting Ruby Perfection Cabbage for the display.

Here's Ruby Perfection Cabbage with ferny-leaved Fennel behind, also destined for the Metropolitan Lawn and Garden Show.

Dark red-leaved 'Bull's Blood' Beets are in the foreground with Society Garlic's vertical variegated leaves in the middle with purple basil and chard in the background. A beautiful landscape can easily be created by the wonderful foliage colors and textures of many of our favorite edible plants.

Flower like these fragrant Stocks will also enhance our Metro Show Garden so you will experience a complete preview of spring and a well grown garden. Make sure to mark your calendar for February 11th -13th and come see us at the Metropolitan Lawn and Garden Show. We'll have all sorts of tips and ideas for you to grow your own edible garden at home. Until then don't let cabin fever keep you indoors, get out and experience the wonderful winter landscape now on display at Powell Gardens! It may be several more lifetimes until we experience such a snowy landscape again.

Winter Plants in the Perennial Garden

Powell Gardens received 8 inches of sparkling fresh, powdery snow overnight creating a clean insulating blanket of white over the gardens. Today's crystal blue skies and peaceful atmosphere made a walk through the Perennial very special. Here's what some of the "bones" of this delightful winter landscape look like now:]

A view from the south "Shade Native Garden" end of the Perennial Garden across our frozen lake to the Visitor Center on the far hill depicts the quiet beauty of the garden's scenery. We have cleared a walking path through all the main walks of the garden so any visitor may experience the beauty of our winter landscape. Rarely do we have so much snow!

The sculpture armillary and its shadow: we are a day short of one month past the Winter Solstice so the long shadows are getting shorter each day as we are now two months out from the Vernal Equinox (Spring!). Tomorrow, 2/3rds of the dark half of our year is over!

The Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) grove in the Woodland Garden portion of the Perennial Garden shows off very lovely wintertime trunks caked in bluish-gray lichens. Every time I walk through these clumps of trees I think of why I never promote "standard spacing" for plants. This would not have the same feel if they were all 10 or 20 feet apart! Be brave, dare to plant things (other than birches) in clumps and groves.

The horizontal branches of a Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) still support snow. I actually like the brown pea pod fruit as a bit of extra ornament. Some have told me they hate it that the pods hang on the tree and look ugly, to each their own I guess but this is how our native redbud is supposed to look in winter.

The pods of the Japanese Pagodatree (Sophora japonica) make a nice contrast with the blue winter sky. This color would not be anything special in the brilliance of our summer sun but adds a good bit of interest to the winter landscape. This tree is much revered in Eastern Asia where it graces many temples in China, Korea and Japan.

The twisting-pendant branches of Scarlet Curls Willow (Salix x erythroflexuosa) are almost cranberry red on the sunny side but the camera mutes them to an almost champagne color. None-the-less this is a very lovely tree in the winter landscape. It's a hybrid between the Corkscrew Willow and the Golden Weeping Willow. You can see the snow-covered tapestry hedge in the background.

Here's an overall view of the Scarlet Curls Willow in the middle of the Perennial Garden.

The curling bark of the "Paperbark" Chinese Fringetree (Chionanthus serrulatus) is completely different from typical Chinese Fringetrees (Chionanthus retusus) which have very dark stems. They are now considered the same species but they are two different plants in the landscape! The Paperbark form has prettier bark in the winter but is a shy bloomer of frilly-fringed white flowers in late spring.

The exfoliating bark of the Peking Tree Lilac (Syringa pekinensis 'China Snow') is polished with whiter horizontal dashes called lenticels that make it look a cherry rather than a lilac. Take a moment to feel how polished and smooth the fresh bark looks after the outer papery bark has peeled away.

I know the Seven Sons Tree (Hepatcodium miconioides) gets a write up in many of my blogs. The freshly exposed bone white bark with remnant strips of the sandy old bark always gets my attention in fall and winter when I walk by. The bark will age back to a sandy tan only to slough off again next season.

The interesting patchwork of gray and furrowed bark on this native Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor) trunk is the result of a fungus that makes it slough off. It doesn't harm the tree and is characteristic of the Swamp White and White Oaks (Quercus alba) which otherwise would have much more flaky bark.

The warty trunk of this Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) is exceptional in the "Woodland Garden" north end of the Perennial Garden. You can see the frozen lake, prairie grasses in the meadow and the chapel in the background. Can you identify the tree to the back and right? It's a Swamp white oak with its patchy gray trunk; the tree to the back left is a Shagbark Hickory with its characteristic shaggy bark.

The Sparkleberry Hollies (Ilex serrata 'Sparkleberry) have endured below zero temperatures and lost a bit of their red sparkle. We got down to -7F one night at Powell Gardens last week. The snow cover was a good insulating blanket for most plants. The more urban core of Greater Kansas City did not even drop below zero!

A Serbian Spruce (Picea omorika) is beautifully flocked with snow. This is one of the finest evergreen trees for our region. This tree in the middle of the Perennial Garden is atypical as usually Serbian Spruces are very narrow, tall pyramids. We have an unusual form: there's a 'Fat Albert' Blue Spruce but certainly we can think of a better name for this plant.

Powell Gardens' winter gardens are more beautiful than ever with such a brilliant white blanket of snow. Dare to come take a walk and experience the quiet, peace and serenity of the landscape. Remember that Cafe Thyme is open Friday-Sunday with Lon Lane's Inspired Occasions' new menu so you can have a marvelous meal before or after your hearty walk. The roads to and the paths through the gardens are plowed of snow and readily accessible.

Powell Gardens on Ice

The weekend storm brought ice to the Powell Gardens vicinity and we were thankful it ended when it did. Any more ice load and we would have had major damage to trees! The ice storm created a beautiful and ephemeral landscape so I raced out to capture it in the morning sun before the ice dissipates.

The North Side of the Visitor Center shows magnolias (center) and holly (right) encased in ice, frozen in time and just at their breaking point.

The conifer garden looks great etched in ice, most of these plants are designed to handle large ice and snow loads.

The butterfly bench appears to take flight on this magical day.

I was the first to walk the dogwood walk through the grove of native trees east of the Visitor Center.

The Swamp White Oak at the hairpin curve of the dogwood walk survived the catastrophic ice storm of 2002 and looks extra beautiful with its 2010 ice load.

The entrance to the Island Garden lines up with the Meadow Pavilion on the far hill and almost looks like a black & white photograph today.

The Island Garden Arbor and dock

When I stopped to take a photo across the lake a flock of nervous Greater White-fronted Geese took off and added to the composition! (The local tame Canada Geese just stayed put on the lake, outside the photograph)

The walk to the chapel through the woods takes on a whole new feel etched in ice and snow.

The chapel looms beautifully at the end of the walk, we seldom show an image of it flocked in snow.

The wave of prairie grasses encased in ice on the meadow that sweeps from the chapel to the meadow pavilion glistens in the morning sun.

The Loblolly Pines (left) are one such long-needled conifer that is susceptible to damage from ice but it did hold up this time, the bushier pines are Virginia Pine -- one of the best pines for wildlife. Both Loblolly and Virginia Pines do well in our local heavy clay soil.

Various birches bend almost to the ground with ice load at the Rock & Waterfall trolley stop. The tree on the left is a Szechuan Elm from China and so far that tree has been a stellar performer for us through all types of weather.


This Japanese Tree Lilac, flocked in ice and snow by Mother Nature almost looks surreal with the backdrop of dark Virginia Pines.

The bench that commemorates Dr. Norlan Henderson looks over iris hill. It won't be long and we will be amazed that this icy landscape existed. In about 10-12 weeks this hill will be ablaze with the blooms of Merit winning Tall Bearded Iris.

As a horticultural practice reminder: do not try to shake off ice load from shrubs and trees as you will do more damage than good. I have seen the whole top of a 20 ft. tree crash down after it was shook with a broom! Be patient and let the ice melt off, the tree will gradually recover its form. Props of support are best added only while the ice storm is in progress, and this only works safely for small trees. Some of the most ice resistant trees at Powell Gardens (surviving the catastrophic ice storm of 2002 with almost no damage) include Post Oak, Bur Oak, Shagbark Hickory, Baldcypress, Kentucky Coffeetree and Sugar Maple.

Powell Gardens is open if you want to come see Mother Nature's magic in person. We left the walks with their dusting of snow which has made them easy to walk on, giving safe traction to a walk through the gardens.