Tag: coloured stems

Stems of dogwoods and willows at BAC

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 8, 2013
16 Comments on Stems of dogwoods and willows at BAC

Earlier in the winter I posted a blog about the value of coloured stems in our garden. We have lots more up in the community gardens on our allotment site, Bowbrook Allotment Community. Now we have a little sunshine brightening our days I thought it would be interesting to see the colours in Cornus (Dogwoods) and Salix (Willows) that we have accumulated in our 4 year development.

First though a look into my sketchpad.

We put together a collection of stems of all the different Cornus and Salix that we grow in the communal gardens and photographed them on a rare sunny day.

First the Dogwoods ….

….and then the Willows.

Tags coloured bark, coloured stems, community gardening, cornus, dogwoods, garden photography, gardening, salix, shrubs, trees, willow, willows, winter, winter gardens

colours conservation garden design garden photography gardening ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs winter gardens

Colourful Stems

In the first few months of each new year the garden treats us to a colourful show of bright and varied coloured stems of shrubs. The most colourful are the dogwoods and willows of which we grow several specially chosen for their coloured stems. They glow in any bright days at this time of year.

This selection of stems cut from our garden include dogwood, Kerria, willow, bamboo and Winter Jasmine.

The first pair of photos shows Cornus, the first is “Midwinter Fire” which we grow alongside our summerhouse just where it gets backlit by the winter sun, the second is “Cardinal” of which we have several specimens around the garden as they look good in any light.

Below is neither a dogwood or willow but an extremely red stemmed Acer called “Sango Kaku”, which we have planted alongside Cornus “Midwinter Fire”. We look forward to seeing them grow together.

The Cardinals in our front garden grow in front of our White-stemmed Birch, Betula utilis “Silver Queen”.

We keep adding shrubs with coloured stems and yesterday I took these cuttings below off gardening friend Pete’s fiery willow.

Sometimes the coloured stems are made even more special with the addition of flowers. The willow below with its black stems glow with the emergence of its white flowers at this time of year.

I shall finish with the photo of a bunch of stems cut from our bamboos.

Tags coloured stems, cornus, dogwoods, garden photography, gardening, salix, shrubs, willows, winter, winter gardens

autumn gardening ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs trees

Shrub Planting

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 12, 2011

Yesterday we planted new shrubs in the front garden. The weather was dismal with light drizzle and mist hanging all around. We were entertained by the calls of winter migrants passing overhead. It sounded as if large flocks of Redwings, Mistle Thrush and Fieldfares were passing overhead as we could hear regularly the mechanical “chick chuck” call of the Fieldfares and the higher pitched call of their smaller relative the Redwing. The cloud was so low though we only saw a few low-fliers, those with vertigo presumably.

The darkness lasted all day and daylight never seemed to happen. I took photos of the new acquisitions but the light was so poor the results were terrible, so today a bright sunny day I tried again. The low autumn rays of the sun made photography much more interesting.

The bed already has a trio of white-stemmed birches and a Sorbus vilmorinii and some established shrubs such as Sambucus “Black Lace”, Forest Pansy and a gleditzia. As these grow we hope the new shrubs will act as an understorey. We chose shrubs with interesting berries or coloured foliage or stems.

So for berries we selected Viburnum davidii and Hypericum “Magical Beauty” with their pearl-like berries in gloss black and peachy pink respectively.

Two shrubs we bought should produce berries but the specimens we found were devoid of them. The first of these, another Viburnum selected for its berries and the colour of its foliage in autumn was Viburnum nudum “Pink Beauty”. It displays creamy-white flowers in summer followed by pink fruit which matures to purplish-black which should contrast beautifully with its deep red autumn foliage display. The second was a shrub we have previously not grown, Itea virginica but we were tempted by the variety “Little Henry” with its deep purple autumn foliage. We can now look forward to the scent of its white drooping spires of white flowers in the summer.

The final two shubs are colour coordinated but we didn’t realise this until we put them together in the trolley. The red and orange flowers of Mahonia nitida “Cabaret” match perfectly the stems of Cornus sericea “Cardinal”.