Peak of Spring!

Spring has exploded with a bonanza of flowers, butterflies & birds at Powell Gardens. Because of technical problems I cannot share images at this time but shall as soon as possible!

Precocious (spring flowering) magnolias and daffodils were in peak bloom last weekend. The lovely yellow Butterflies magnolia is currently in full bloom.

This weekend of April 26-27 will be peak bloom for redbuds. Dogwoods are budding well and may be quite showy by the weekend if the warmth continues. We are two weeks behind recent bloom times this year.

Wild plums opened yesterday and are in full bloom along the nature trail. A hike on the nature trail requires water proof footwear because of all the rain! Butterflies have emerged en masse and are at peak of spring numbers. The high ridge of the nature trail is where they "hilltop" on warm days. Butterflies go to the highest point around to search for a mate. Trail markers 18-20 are the best areas.

Spring bird reports are pouring in and beautiful Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Indigo Buntings, Baltimore Orioles and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have all returned. They are looking for feeders because mother nature is so far behind this year. We will be putting up oriole feeders outside the Cafe shortly and the hummingbird garden nectar plants will be planted next week.

The azaleas should be in peak bloom during the Spring Plant Sale weekend May 3-4. Be sure and check out our website (www.powellgardens.org) for the list of plants available at our plant sale. Friends members only get the first pick on Friday night (May 2) from 5-7pm. You may join or renew now!

Stay tuned for some images of the magnolias -- we have the best collection in the mid USA.

The Precocious Magnolias of Powell Gardens

Powell Gardens has one of the most extensive public garden collections of magnolias outside the East and West Coasts. The magnolias that bloom before the leaves emerge are known as "precocious" magnolias. All have native origins in Eastern Asia where the Yulan (Magnolia denudata) is widely attributed as being the first plant ever cultivated by humankind for its beauty rather than its food value. We have planted a Yulan just before you enter our new Heartland Harvest Garden just for that contrast! Native American magnolias bloom later in spring and into early summer -- an adaptation to North America's wild mood swings of spring weather. The American Cucumber Magnolia (Magnolia acuminata) the only magnolia with yellow in its flowers has been hybridized with the Asian precocious magnolias to create some of the new precocious yellow-flowering cultivars. This was first done by the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

Magnolia 'Gold Cup' is a hybrid between the Yulan and American Cucumbertree Magnolia. It's huge goblet flowers have a yellowish base but I would have named this plant 'Ivory Cup'! This plant is currently in bloom at the Visitor Center Trolley Stop.

Magnolia 'Butterflies' is probably the most yellow of the precocious hybrid magnolias. It is becoming more widely available in the nursery trade and always a stunning bloomer at Powell Gardens -- it has never failed to bloom! Its only drawback is that a small tree takes about six years to be covered in flowers. (The backdrop magnolia is Magnolia 'Royal Crown.')


The open flowers of Butterflies Magnolia are like yellow waterlilies. Our largest plant is at the Visitor Center Trolley Stop.


Magnolia 'Royal Crown' has huge 10-inch blooms. It usually begins to bloom in late February and is subsequently ruined by frosts and freezes. This year it held off to bloom spectacularly BUT we grow it for its secondary bloom in June. The June bloom is awesome with huge pink, better formed flowers set against the green foliage. This tree grows next to Butterflies at the trolley stop.


Magnolia 'March 'til Frost' has dark goblet shaped flowers and blooms fully in March (April this year!) and sporadically all through the season until fall's frost. This tree is also at the Visitor Center Trolley Stop.


The common Saucer Magnolia (Magnolia x soulangiana) has several exquisite cultivars that are hard to find and usually just available mailorder from specialty nurseries. This is the fabulous cultivar 'Lennei Alba' with its exquisitely formed, pristine flowers.


Rustica Rubra Saucer Magnolia is another fabulous cultivar with deeper, better formed flowers with good repeat bloom through the season. We planted it around the front of the Kauffman Garden's orangerie. Colonial Nursery has nice balled and burlaped plants of this beauty this year.


The "Little Girl" magnolias are becoming immensely popular and combine the purple color of the Chinese Lily Magnolia (Magnolia liliiflora) with the frost hardy, Japanese Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata). The combination is sterile but it has flower power with frost tolerant, later bloom and good repeat bloom in the summer. Jane Magnolia is depicted and is the most like the saucer magnolia. It is also the most widely available of the "Little Girls."


Ann Magnolia is a good bushy cultivar of the "Little Girls." It has orchid pink flowers in abundance and can be seen in the Visitor Center's Courtyard. This cultivar is widely available at local nurseries.


Pinkie Magnolia is my favorite of the "Little Girls" with the best formed, best color in my mind. You can see it next to 'Butterflies' magnolia on the Trolley Stop. It is very difficult to find and usually available only mailorder.


Randy Magnolia is another one of the "Little Girls" that is now difficult to find. I like it here in the Rock & Waterfall Garden where shady conditions favor it to have less, more widely spaced blooms that are so showy now. The Little Girls will grow in full sun to shade but have more blossoms in the sun.


The Northern Kobus Magnolia (Magnolia kobus 'Borealis') was a cloud of white flowers. This is probably the largest growing of the precocious magnolias and is found wild on Japan's north island of Hokkaido. It can easily grow to 50 feet tall! Wendy Powell just sent me some images from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden showing many of their mature magnolias in bloom. Powell Gardens has set the stage for spectacular displays of spring flowering magnolias for years to come! This is but a small taste of the 90 cultivars on display at Powell Gardens, though as a young garden our plants are still small.

Powell Gardens, melding native and exotic plants

Powell Gardens is a unique marriage of native and exotic plants. I took this picture yesterday because it is such an interesting composition. The drifts of planted, non-native daffodils (Narcissus spp.) are showy and beautiful but they are woven into the native grasses and other native plants. No native plant dares have such large flowers this early. The small tree center left is a native redbud (Cercis canadensis) and usually one of our first showy flowering native plants. It's not yet in flower though it was flowering by now for the prior 11 springs. The evergreen is a wild seedling of Eastern Redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) and the tree overhead is a Post Oak (Quercus stellata) with a few marcesant leaves still clinging to its lower branches.
We weave in non-invasive exotic plants to enhance the aesthetic experience of Powell Gardens but keep the natives as the warp and weft to celebrate our spirit of place. Without the native plant "bones" to the garden, we would look like anywhere in the world. In late summer (with the daffodils dormant) this image will show no exotics with billowing native grasses, wild sunflowers, goldenrods and asters.


The cool spring of 2008 has made many of the bulbs look like the images in the catalogs for a change (Most bulbs are Dutch grown where the maritime springs are much cooler). Ice Follies Daffodil (shown) has a creamy to yellow center, but in our more typical warmer springs the flower are never as yellow and just look creamy white. Daffodils are a reliable, deer resistant showy flower for spring. Their clumps persist and can naturally multiply into extensive drifts. They do not self-sow or become invasive. They are true spring ephemerals and go completely dormant by midsummer.


Blues are one of my favorite flowers and the native blue-flowering plants are not yet in flower. Here deep blue 'Delft Blue' Hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis) and Grape Hyacinths (Muscari armeniaca) put on a show in the west seating area of the Island Garden. The color theme for this space is quiet contrasts between blue and scarlet. If you visit you will see the scarlet Tulip praestans 'Fusilier' which provides the contrast. Shortly, native Woodland Phlox (Phlox divaricata) and Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) will be the natives providing the blue color to this planting.


Forsythias are as flamboyant as ever this spring. New hybrids of these often ubiquitous shrubs have really made them more interesting landscape plants. This is the newer cultivar 'Gold Tide' which is a low grower and Plant of Merit (green sign depicted). Look for our planting near the Visitor Center trolley stop. Forsythia's flower power in early spring make them dear to many with spring fever. They are mostly sterile hybrids and pose no threat of escaping to natural areas.

Our native Fragrant Sumac (Rhus aromatica) is also in bloom now with yellow flowers but the flowers are tiny and not so showy. Fragrant sumac's flowers are nectar rich however and are important early nectar source for many insects. Fragrant sumac is a better plant than forsythia through the seasons with striking red, fuzzy berries against its lush green foliage in summer, and vibrant orange to scarlet fall color. Fragrant sumac will never outsell Forsythia because gardeners are apt to buy their plants in spring, not thinking through the whole seasons and what a plant has to offer the landscape. Fragrant Sumac can be seen in the parking lot (where we only display plants native to Kansas and Missouri), Island Garden and Perennial Garden. Drifts of wild fragrant sumac can be seen on the Nature Trail.