Two woody plants with opposite personalities are in glorious bloom at opposite ends of the property.
The extrovert:
People are always asking about the unusual shrub in front by the street which suddenly covered itself with hundreds of deep red flowers last week. This is the ‘Aphrodite’ hybrid of a native sweetshrub, Calycanthus occidentalis, with its long-lost East Asian cousin Calycanthus chinensis, from which it was separated during the age of the dinosaurs by continental drift and is now joyfully and spectacularly reunited via this hybrid. The American species contributed the color and the flower shape, while the Chinese species, which is white, contributed flower size and width of petal to the hybrid.
“Calycanthus” is Greek for ‘chalice flower’, referring to the curved cupping shape of its petals. It is an important pollinator, not for bees or butterflies but for other insects.
The introvert:
No one has asked me about this quiet woodland bloomer at the back of the property to the left of the tennis court, now covered with clusters of tiny white flowers beloved of both bees and butterflies.
The Pagoda dogwood lacks the well-known four heart-shaped ‘petals’ of the Eastern dogwood. Its name does not come from its geographical origin — it too is native to open woods of the Eastern United States.
No, this dogwood gets its name from its branching habit. Its trunk has a stack of horizontal whorls of branches with a flat top, which reminded someone of the stack of decorative roofs on a pagoda.
I used to wonder if this dogwood was getting enough sun under the high branches of a nearby oak and elm, since its trunk lacked a central leader at the top. I have since learned that this species has evolved to have a flat top and to luxuriate outward in the shade. It would in fact be stressed by too much direct sunlight.
– Andrew Hatcher
Head Volunteer Gardener