Landscapes with Daylillies and Magnolias
When April arrives in MidAmerica and almost too soon, for there are always a lot of unfinished jobs which are carried ever from March. However, the old back and arms have begun to function more smoothly with less creaking and popping. Now we can roll up our sleeves and really get busy.
If the lion's roar kept up during March and the lawn failed to get the proper attention, take care of this job pronto. The longer the seeding is postponed, the less the chance to get a stand of grass that will be able to compete with weeds and the hot dry spell that usually finds a place in the weathermans summer schedule.
This months agenda includes the observance of Arbor Day, which was founded by Sterling Morton in Nebraska on April 10, 1872. Arbor Day in Missouri was established in 1919, to be the first Friday after the first Tuesday in April. Kansas Arbor Day is the last Friday in March.
If you wish to increase your plantings of hemerocallis (daylilies), divide the old plants now and set the divisions in proper locations. Carefully dig the stock plants, wash the soil from the roots with the hose and separate, cutting into the crown and pulling off the plants of the desired size. For a nice color combination plant the favorite citron yellow just in back of a nice group of pink phlox. Another pleasing combination is yellow hemerocallis with pink peonies. For additional color in the hardy border during July and August, try the daylilies.
Shrubs and trees best transplanted in the spring instead of fall are buddleia, althea, vitex, flowering dogwood, redbud, magnolia, tulip tree, birch, sweet gum, ginkgo, and hawthorn.
About Magnolias
Magnolias usually get the blue ribbons for being our most beautiful spring flowering trees. Even very young plants bloom. Flowers of most sorts are deliciously fragrant and the texture of the exquisitely-colored petals is thick, waxy and lustrous. The Oriental species of magnolias bloom before their foliage appears.
The star magnolia, M. stellata, leads the parade and usually begins to unfold its white. short-stalked, flat, fragrant star-shaped flowers about the very first of spring. The star magnolia develops as a shrub-like tree of spreading habit and slowly attains a height and spread of ten to 12 feet. There is also a pink variety of this species but color in the flowers, I have observed. is not very "pink."
The saucer magnolia, M. Soulangeana, is the most common species in MidAmerica. The original plant, a cross between two native Chinese magnolias. M. denudata and M. liliflora, was raised in the garden of Chevalier Soulange Bodin near Paris. It is a hardy. vigorous grower, producing a profusion of blooms soon after the star magnolia has opened.
The slightly fragrant. saucer-shaped flowers are four to six inches across, purplish on the outside and white within. Even though the wood of these species is extremely hardy and not subject to winter injury even when temperatures are as low as 20 degrees below zero, the flowering buds which are formed during the previous summer and fall are quite often killed by below zero temperatures. The flowering , buds of M. stellata are hardier, and usually come through severe winters with very little damage.
The Yulan magnolia, M. conspicua or denudata, is a white flowering species. Its habit of growth is like its offspring Soulangeana, and the bellshaped flowers are about six inches across.
Other varieties of Soalangeana found are alba superba with white flowers, and rustica which opens late with flowers dark purple on the outside. Another good hardy variety is Magnolia liliflora nigra, with narrow purplish petals that do not open out as full as the preceding named varieties. Magnolia 'Kobus,' from Japan, is a hardy species somewhat similar to stellata but usually not as floriferous. It has six petals instead of the 12 to 18 of stellata.
How to Use Them
Magnolias are easy to grow. The essential thing is to select the kinds you prefer and plant them in favorable locations. Since they are primarily ornamental trees, they are usually grown as single specimens on lawns and the location is therefore important. A somewhat sheltered site with evergreens as background material is very effective. Magnolias like rich, well-drained soil with plenty of moisture. A two or three-inch mulch of peat moss is very beneficial. Thus far the Oriental magnolias in the MidAmerica area have been practically free from insect or disease injury.
Most magnolias sold by local nurserymen are shipped in early in the spring from other southern states. These plants are usually well supplied with flowering buds which will open out in the sales yards and simply beg to be taken home. The supply is always limited, so dont wait too long. Have your nurseryman call you when his trees arrive. If they are set out soon after arrival, they will bloom in your yard.
The American species of magnolias are among the most handsome of our native southern trees. All of them flower after the leaves have appeared. Only one species, the hardiest of the magnolias, the cucumber-tree, M. acuminata, is a native of southern Missouri. The yellowish-green, inconspicuous flowers appear in June and are followed by scarlet cucumber shaped seed pods. This species develops into a rather large tree (one specimen in northeastern Missouri has a trunk that is about 15 inches in diameter and is nearly 50 feet tall) and might be used as a street tree if stock were available.
The sweet bay or swamp bay, M. virginiana, is hardy in our gardens and should be planted more often. The smooth, silver-lined, slender, oblong leaves distinguish it from other species grown. It is hardy all through the winter. The white globular, delightfully fragrant Howers open in late May and continue to appear for about three weeks.
The great laurel magnolia, M. grandiflora, is a stately evergreen tree of pyramidal habit, native to the South. Several nice specimens of this magnolia are grown in sheltered locations but this is apparently about the northern limit for this kingly tree. The pure white. globular. fragrant flowers produced in June are about eight to 12 inches in diameter. While the tree remains green in the South, in this area the foliage is frequently browned and partially killed by low temperatures.
Magnolia macrophylla is a rare tree in this area, but the few specimens found here indicate its hardiness. It has the largest simple leaves and largest flowers of any deciduous tree in the United States. Leaves are sometimes three feet long, and I have taken a picture of a flower 13 inches across. The tree grows very slowly here and is still on trial.
Controlling Diseases
Caring for plant in
controlling the diseases is based primarily on prevention. With but few exceptions, diseased plants or a jade plant for example cannot be cured in the sense that affected parts can be restored to normal functioning. The typical plant parasite cannot be reached by sprays or dusts after it has entered the plant. Any remedy drastic enough to kill the parasites inside the plant usually destroys the plant itself. For this reason control measures for plant diseases are based upon sanitation with good cultural practices, exclusion from the garden of plants which are likely to be diseased, eradication of diseased plants or parts of diseased plants as soon as they are noticed, protection by the application of chemical sprays or dusts before the disease has gained a strong hold, and selection and development of resistant plant varieties.
The state flower of Missouri is the hawthorn, probably the downy hawthorn, Crataegus mollis, which is a tree occasionally rising to 40 feet, with heavy, wide spreading, ashy-gray branches, forming a broad round topped and often symmetrical head. It is found on low, rich soil, usually on bottom lands. The branchlets are thickly coated with long matted hairs the first season, becoming smooth the second.
The spines which are one to two inches long, straight, stout, dark brown and shining, occur only occasionally. The leaves which are three to four inches long and as wide, heartshaped with four or five pairs of acute or rounded lateral lobes, are light green in color. The flowers, opening in April, are one-half to one inch across, white, in many-flowered fuzzy heads. The edible fruits, the red haws, which we were so fond of as children are three-fourths to one inch in diameter. short, oblong, and bright scarlet. The flesh is sweet, yellow, dry and mealy in August, when they ripen. Unfortunately this hawthorn has proven very susceptible to the orange rust disease and for this reason is not being planted often.
The shadblow service berry, Amelanchier canadensis, is one of the first native flowering trees to usher in the spring landscape season. If you wait until the redbud and violets are in bloom before making a trip to the woods, you will miss the thrill of seeing this white ghost, the shadblow. Other native trees stand by naked without a leaf to hide the beauty of Natures first born fairy queen.
The soft, drooping racemes of the white blossoms would be attractive at any time, but are especially beautiful so early in the season.
The shadblow is a small, round-headed tree, rarely over 40 feet in height and usually less than 20 feet. At the borders of rich woods it attains greater height than when found fringing rocky bluffs. The tree is frequently called juneberry or service berry, because of the small edible fruits that are produced in summer time.
