Flowers that Defy Jack Frost

It's early November and the weather is still mild.  We've had some short cold snaps and a few hard freezes but Indian Summer is here today and tomorrow and after another brief cold snap early next week it will return again.  YES, there are still many beautiful flowers at Powell Gardens.  The fall floral displays are designed with flowers and foliage that defy Jack Frost.

The planting in front of our entrance sign is a beautiful tapestry of pansies in blue & white, 'Lemon Cream' Calendulas, ornamental "flowering" cabbages, kale and 'Delphi Purple' mums.  All these plants have held beautifully through a hard freeze and should last at least through Thanksgiving.

Here's a closer side view that captures the beautiful flowers and foliage of the entrance planting.

Hardy flowers also come in HOT colors!  I love this planting outside Cafe Thyme with red 'Speedy Sonic Crimson' Snapdragons encircled by 'Orange King' and 'Lemon Cream' Calendulas.


Strawflowers (Bracteantha) 'Sundaze Flame' is a very underutilized fall flower and can be cut used as an "everlasting".  Here there is a bit of a color echo with its orange edged "petals" and the 'Merville des Quatre Saisons' (The Four Seasons) Lettuce, an heirloom variety with gorgeous bronze foliage so lovely at this season.  Look for these in the ramp terrace beds leading to the Dogwood Walk.

Verbena 'Superbena Blue' has been one phenomenal "annual" this year.  It actually survived last winter and has bloomed, and bloomed and bloomed and is STILL in bloom!  The last of the season's butterflies have been all over this flower too.  It is on the south side of the Visitor Center below the Conservatory.

The 'Hillside Sheffield Pink' Mums are still the best of the late season perennial flowers!  Look close and see the butterflies and other pollinators.  I will carefully look over these flowers today and Saturday for unique species of butterflies that may have blown up here from the South or even the tropics.  Fall is the time for stray butterflies and a Tailed-Orange (butterfly) from Texas's Rio Grande Valley showed up in Wichita yesterday!  This picture was taken on the Island Garden.


These are seedling mums (Dendranthema) in the Perennial Garden.  Sometimes mother nature does some really neat plantings for us we must save.  I love the just right highlight of the white with the yellow flowers we could never have created so well.


In the conservatory the "pot" mums are simply stunning.  This is 'Brunswick' Mum with dark 'Sweet Caroline Raven' Sweet Potato and orange 'Sedona' Coleus as companions in the conservatory display.


I love this composition of 'Shanghai Red' Mums with 'Dipped in Wine' Coleus also in the Conservatory.

I like all the fall inspired mum compositions in the conservatory:  here's  'Golden Gate' Mum with 'Honeycrisp' Coleus.

How about 'Pittsburgh Purple' Mum with 'Fishnet Stockings' Coleus' where the mum picks up on the purple veins of the coleus.

Here's a Checkered White butterfly enjoying the last of season's flowers (an Aromatic Aster) at Powell Gardens.  The weather is supposed to be blustery but warm on Saturday so join the butterflies and visit the gardens and see our wealth of fall flowers, and foliage.  Jack Frost has visited but there are still many flowers and the cool season crops in the Heartland Harvest Garden are near peak.  The late fall colors on plants like Japanese Maples are also beautiful right now.

Colors of the Late Fall Garden

November is the final month of fall so considered "late fall" in gardening language.  It is a very beautiful month in our heartland location with the last of the fall foliage colors, last of the season's hardy flowers, and the most berry colorful month of the whole year.  The colors of the tropics are gone with the intense summer sun as now we have the beautiful burnt reds, oranges, yellows and tans so illuminated by the sun's lower position in the sky.

This image from the Perennial Garden epitomizes the season in the Perennial Garden.  The burned yellow of the Arkansas Bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii) in fall color as backdrop, dark orange full bloom of a seedling chrysanthemum (Dendranthema hybrids) and the contrasting lavender-purple flower of one of our longest blooming native plants: Rose Verbena (Verbena or Glandularia canadense).  The seedheads of the Purple Coneflowers add even more to the composition as does the far backdrop of still green Miscanthus grasses and their silvery plumes that blend into the sky.

The Mums in the garden are at peak bloom now.  Here Jennifer Barnes (Senior Gardener in the Perennial Garden) is picking up fallen twigs but we were admiring our ever-changing "menagerie" of mums.  The light yellow mums are 'Ryan Gainey' mums given to us when Mr. Gainey (a well-known Atlanta gardener) brought them to us when he spoke at a prior Garden Symposium.  They have hybridized with other mums in the garden to produce the kaleidoscope of colors.

Our hybrid mums are from a group given to us by Jackie Goetz of Overland Park so we simply call them Jackie's Mums.  Here is a picture of a planting of them from the Heartland Harvest Garden's vineyard.  They have been self-sowing in her garden for over 20 years and now for almost a decade here at Powell Gardens.  They are late fall bloomers and range in colors from white to yellow, orange, near red, pink, and lavender!  I told Jackie her mums were promiscuous but she corrected me that the bees are just busy cross pollinating them!

The soft pink mums in this picture are 'Hillside Sheffield Pink' mums which are also in this group and also contribute to our wonderful color array of seedling mums at the garden.  This mass on the Island Garden creates a stunning composition now with the baldcypress in its rusty fall color.

This weird season after such a dry summer has made many plants bloom out of sequence.  Here Jennifer Barnes admires a 'The President' Clematis blooming in the Perennial Garden.  These flowers withstood 27F without any damage!  Is this a subliminal message to get out and VOTE next week?

Ornamental grasses like this 'Desert Plains' Fountain Grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides) in the Perennial Garden clearly express the season with their beautiful seedheads.

Here is stunning 'Sioux Blue' Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans) beautifully backlit with 'Raydon's Favorite' Asters (Aster oblongifolius) in the foreground and a dark backdrop of our tapestry hedge.  We usually don't cut down our ornamental grasses until late winter or early spring to allow for their beauty to shine all winter.



Some of the most ornamental fruit now are the crabapples (Malus hybrids).  This is the 'Indian Magic' Flowering Crabapple's fruit in the Perennial Garden.  It makes such a warm and seasonal display in the garden now and will be a feast for songbirds through winter.

We were thrilled to discover a surprise American Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens) vine climbing in our largest Seven Sons tree in the Perennial Garden.  The birds planted this one and we are lucky it was a girl so it can show this colorful fruit (not yet popped open to reveal scarlet berries inside the orange husk).  Yes, we embrace many of nature's changes in the garden and we will NOT remove this vine.

Here, Jennifer poses with our younger Seven Sons tree (Hepatcodium miconioides) which is in its pink, post bloom stage.  The pink color is the fruit, actually the left over flower calyxes attached to the fruit.  Seven Sons blooms white in September and is one of our best early fall flowering trees, attracting a wealth of pollinators and butterflies.   It will grow 15 to 20 feet tall at maturity and the Greater Kansas City champion is at the Kauffman Memorial Garden.

Most trees are in fall color or past peak.  Trees that are broad-leaved and still green are usually species from Europe or Asia now.  The green tree above is a Sawtooth Oak (Quercus acutissima) from Asia.  The tree on the lake edge in rust is a Baldcypress and the trees holding earthy tan foliage are Swamp White Oaks.  Many of our oaks hang on to their "dead" leaves which are called marcescent foliage.  Baldcypress are one of our few deciduous conifers with needle leaves that turn beautiful rust shades in late fall and drop.  Every year we get comments from visitors that our pine is dying and we have to let them know it is the BALDcypress, aptly named as it is bald in winter.


Evergreens do keep their foliage all season and many are simply stunning now including this image from the Perennial Garden's tapestry hedge.  The center "green" evergreen is an 'Emerald Sentinel" Juniper (Juniperus virginiana) which is just a selection of our native Eastern Redcedar that is columnar in form with foliage that stays truer green in winter.  On either side are "blue" needled selections of the native Eastern Redcedar "Glauca" junipers.  All these are female selections so are studded now with blue "berries" which are actually modified cones.

From late fall flowers, to colorful leaves, and berries; the gardens are sure beautiful right now.  Come out and experience this season while it lasts: the weekend looks to be mild so come enjoy a walk through the gardens in the crisp autumn air.

Epitaph to a Tree?

The little green menace has now been found in Greater Kansas City!  Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), a tiny beetle from Northeastern Asia, has been confirmed in Platte and Wyandotte Counties.  What's the big deal? EAB kills all Ash trees and thus all the wild creatures dependent upon them.  There are 4 species of Ash tree native to Missouri and Kansas and nearly 400 species of insects dependent upon them alone.

White Ash (Fraxinus americana) is one of two species of ash trees native in Greater Kansas City statewide in Missouri and in the eastern third of Kansas.  It grows in upland woods and is known for being one of the very best local trees for consistent fall color.  White Ash turns colors early and stands out in the woods -- usually purplish to begin with it can look like it is on fire with yellower tones inward changing to oranges, reds and purples on the outer leaves.  As homeowners tend to choose trees for fall color, it is very popular in landscaping.  'Rosehill' is a cultivar of this native tree by our local Rosehill Nursery, while the cultivar 'Autumn Purple' is another popular selection of this tree with more purple fall color.  The White Ash in the above image is a wild tree at Powell Gardens.

Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) is the other locally native ash tree and found statewide in both Kansas and Missouri.  It thrives in low or bottomland woods but is very adaptable to soils wet to dry.  Its tough adaptability has made it a good urban and street tree where it thrives even with concrete all around its roots.  Green Ash turns yellow in the fall, never orange or red.  The picture above is of a Green Ash planted in Powell Gardens' parking lot arboretum of trees native to Kansas and Missouri.

This little tree with nice fall color is on the south side of the Visitor Center and is a third species of ash native to our MO-KAN region but found wild only in Southeast Missouri: Pumpkin Ash (Fraxinus tomentosa).  Pumpkin Ash has fall color usually in shades of orange.  It grows in swamps and can actually survive growing in water, developing a swollen, buttressed trunk -- Chuck Connor, MDC Urban Forester told be that swollen base is the "pumpkin" and how it got its name.  It is otherwise similar to White Ash but its twigs are covered with gray fuzz (known botanically as tomentum and how it got its botanical name).

Blue Ash (Fraxinus quadrangulata) is the fourth species of native Ash and is found on the east and south edge of the metro eastward across Missouri and Southeastern Kansas. Its twigs are square and its late fall color is clear yellow (still green as this picture from this morning shows).  It is called Blue Ash because its sap turns blue when exposed to air and can be used to make a blue dye.  It grows almost exclusively in rocky woods and ledges so needs good drainage wherever planted: the local champion tree is in Loose Park and Powell Gardens largest tree is depicted above by the old Visitor Center with more trees in our parking lot arboretum.

Emerald Ash borer will not harm you, your family or your pets but it KILLS ALL SPECIES of ASH trees native to our region (White, Green, Pumpkin and Blue Ash but NO other species of tree).  Dead ash trees can harm you, your family and your pets.

Ash trees make up about 4% of all trees in Missouri but a much larger percentage in Kansas where they are the third most abundant tree.  Overland Park's tree inventory shows ash make up 23% of its street trees.  The tallest orange tree just to the left of the chapel in the above image is a White Ash.  At Powell Gardens ash numbers closely match the Missouri's average.

Over 400 species of insects require ash trees for their survival.  Do we depend on ash trees for our survival?  I'll start with some statistics of what ash trees do for us in Greater Kansas City where 6.5 million ash trees are estimated to reside, 3 million of them are in our residential areas.  The value of our local ash trees is over 4.5 BILLION dollars!!!  Their value is based on their ecological services starting with how much stormwater they intercept before it runs into our antiquated and stressed stormwater systems, and by reducing stream flooding.  It also includes their pollution control as they not only trap particulates but have sequestered well over half a million tons of carbon dioxide, absorbing another 23,000+ tons every year.  Their leafy shade save on summer cooling costs and even their leafless winter presence helps with holding in heat.  Obviously they provide us with a lot of fresh oxygen to breathe as byproduct of their photosynthesis.  How do we assign a value to their added beauty to our community and the tiny creatures they support?

This beautiful, large caterpillar is an image of one of the creatures that will suffer without ash trees in our region.  It's the Laurel Sphinx which may eat laurel where that plant is native in the East but over here where there is no laurel its sole native food plants are ash trees.  Its adult moth is a sphinx moth that flies with hummingbird-like grace and I will say I've never seen the nocturnal moth though I find its beautiful caterpillars.  This image is by Missouri Master Naturalist Linda Williams.

 

This moth is actual size and looks just like bark to avoid predators while at rest.  It is an Ash Sphinx that flies just like a hummingbird but only at night.  Without alive ash trees this moth will become extinct because that is the only plant its caterpillars are designed to eat. This image also by Linda Williams.

Here's another ash dependent moth, the Waved Sphinx.  Sure, it's doesn't have bright colorful wings as it needs to blend in with bark all day.  My favorite aspect of it is that each individual moth has a different face-like pattern on its back (thorax) outlined in a black circle.  Photo by Betsy Betros.

Here's a different Waved Sphinx with a closeup of its back: sort of a puppy face on this one.  Photo by Betsy Betros.

The Waved Sphinx's caterpillar looks an awful like our pesky tomato and tobacco hornworms, and yep they are related.  I dare you to try and grab this caterpillar!  Unlike docile tomato and tobacco hornworms, Waved Sphinx thrash and BITE!  This caterpillar was found on an Green Ash tree in Overland Park and taken indoors and photographed by Brett Budach.  Why should we care if there are no ash trees and thus none of these sphinx moths?  I may let you ponder that for a future blog, and I've only depicted 3 of the 400 species of insects tied to ash trees and we don't have a picture of the BIG DADDY of sphinx moths: the Great Ash Sphinx. (Don't forget our annual Festival of Butterflies where we hope to share with you these cool creatures in person)

Wendy Powell recently said to me "the 'Rosehill' White Ash were simply stunning along Ward Parkway this fall" and that she hoped "it wasn't their swan song".  Good news is you can treat and save your ash trees and I'll write more about that later.  Start by identifying if you have ash trees on your property.  A lot is at stake for us to save these beautiful trees, the wealth of creatures they support and don't forget that includes us.  Here are some links to learn more about EAB and we will have more information on our website soon:

National Website www.emeraldashborer.info
Missouri EAB Website: www.eab.missouri.edu
Kansas Department of Agriculture Website: www.ksda.gov/plant_protection/content/379