Scientific Classification Few trees carry as much symbolic weight as the American Holly (Ilex opaca). Walk through any woodland along the Eastern Seaboard in December, and you will almost certainly encounter its glossy, spiny leaves and clusters of brilliant red berries standing firm against the cold. But American Holly is far more than a holiday…
Scientific Classification There is a particular kind of joy in finding a Red Mulberry tree heavy with ripe fruit in midsummer. The berries stain your fingers dark purple within seconds, and the flavour — sweet, slightly tart, deeply rich — is unlike anything you will find in a supermarket. That experience, simple as it sounds,…
Winter is the season most gardens go quiet. Trees stand bare. Borders thin out. The garden becomes a place you glance at rather than linger in. And then — sometimes as early as January, long before spring even stirs — Japanese apricot (Prunus mume) opens its blossoms on naked branches, fragrant and fearless, while frost…
Walk through almost any historic European city in July and you will notice something remarkable — a fragrance drifting through the warm air, sweet and honeyed, with a quiet depth that perfumers have chased for centuries. Follow it to its source and you will find a linden tree (Tilia cordata) in full bloom overhead, its…
There are plants you grow for colour. There are plants you grow for structure. And then there are plants you grow for something far less tangible — a fragrance so extraordinary that it stops you mid-step the moment you enter a garden. Fragrant olive (Osmanthus fragrans) belongs entirely to that last category. The blooms are…
There is a moment every spring, usually in late March or early April, when the forest edges of the eastern United States seem to light up from within. Before most trees have leafed out, flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) opens its blossoms — white or pink, wide and elegant — against the still-bare woods behind it….
Walk through almost any neighbourhood in the eastern United States in early spring, and you will notice something before the grass greens or the first tulip opens. Small, vivid red clusters — flowers, not leaves — appear on bare branches while winter still lingers. That is Acer rubrum, the red maple, announcing itself months before…
Some trees are useful. Some are beautiful. And some — rare as they are — manage to be both, profoundly and simultaneously. Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) belongs to that rare category. It clothes entire hillsides in gold and crimson each autumn. This tree yields the sap that becomes genuine maple syrup. It provides one of…
Some trees earn their place in the garden through sheer spectacle. Others earn it through quiet, consistent beauty — season after season, year after year. Sweetbay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana) belongs to the second group. It does not overwhelm. It enchants. With creamy white flowers that fill the air with a vanillalike sweetness, silvery-green leaves that…
There are trees you admire, and then there are trees that stop you in your tracks. Magnolia grandiflora — the Southern magnolia — belongs firmly in the second category. Its enormous white blossoms, glossy evergreen leaves, and commanding stature have made it one of the most celebrated trees in American horticulture. It is the official…