BROOM (Cytisus scoparius)
Several years ago I traded my garden clogs for my traveling shoes and spent two weeks in May touring Spain. The weather was balmy and the flowers adorning cities and highways were spectacular. Most memorable were the acres of broom stretching along the highway — great swaths of yellow, orange and lavender faded into the horizon.

Broom is a deciduous shrub with distinctly angled green stems and few leaves. The flowers resemble a pea flower. They can be a solid color or bicolor. This is a good plant for dry, infertile and sandy soils. Plant in full sun in the north. Prune heavily after flowering to encourage new growth. This plant blooms on old wood. Horsford Nursery will carry the following varieties:

‘Lena’: A mid-May flower explosion with loads of orange-red, yellow-throated blooms. A compact form with unique, angled stems. Grows 3 - 4 feet tall.

‘Lilac Time’: A colorful departure in the world of brooms, you will be pleasantly surprised when this selection opens up and blooms in mid May. Dark, lavender-purple flowers emerge nearly covering the bright green stems. Grows 4 -5 feet tall.

‘Madam Butterfly’: Masses of beautiful bicolor flowers grace this billowing, mounding broom in mid May causing a color sensation in your landscape. Yellow flowers with eye catching orange centers. Grows 4 - 5 feet tall.

‘Hollandia’: This spring beauty is easy to include in any landscape. Flowers of salmon-pink to rosy pink grace this shrub from top to bottom. Plant it with blue forget-me-nots and yellow tulips.

MOUNTAIN LAUREL (Kalmia)
This North American native sports some of the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen. This once very popular shrub fell out of favor in Vermont about ten years ago because people perceived it to be finicky. Truthfully, it is easy to grow in the right soil and light conditions.

Kalmia needs cool, moist, acidic soil that is well-drained. It flowers best in a sunnier location, but it will not like Vermont’s blazing winter sun. Try planting it in an east-facing location that will be somewhat shaded in the afternoon. Kalmia cannot grow in heavy clay or limestone. Due to its shallow, fibrous root system, it is easy to create the perfect soil and to transplant. Mix pine bark, light compost or peat and good loam in equal amounts at least eight inches deep. Mulch to keep the roots moist.

Horsford’s has quite a few varieties available this year, including a true dwarf:

‘Royal Dwarf ’ Sheep Laurel: Low-growing, mounding and spreading, this broadleaf evergreen is at home in moist, rocky areas and puts on a cute little show with narrow, blue-green foliage and rose-pink flowers that appear in clusters from June to July. Tolerates semi-shade well. Grows 1 - 2 feet tall and 2 - 3 feet wide.

‘Little Linda’ Miniature Mountain Laurel: A red-budded miniature. New blooms are near white, turning pink as they mature. A vigorous plant with glossy green leaves. Grows more slowly than the large-leaf varieties. Grows 4 - 5 feet tall.

‘Minuet’ Miniature Mountain Laurel: Miniature with a wide, upright form and dark green, glossy foliage. Full-size flowers that are light pink in bud and open with a bright cinnamon band. Grows 4 - 5 feet tall.

‘Nathan Hale’ Mountain Laurel: Dense, full and rounded, ‘Nathan Hale’ has beautiful form in the nursery and in the landscape. It has foliage that is glossy and deep green and striking red buds that open to large clusters of pastel pink flowers. Grows 7 - 8 feet tall.

CRABAPPLES (Malus)
Over the years, Horsford’s has come to specialize in hardy, disease resistant crabapple varieties. They come in all colors and heights and one, Selkirk, is hardy to Zone 2.

The weeping crabapples ‘Red Jade’ and ‘Candy Apple’ are looking exceptionally robust. Weeping cherries are not hardy this far north, however ‘Red Jade’ and ‘Candy Apple’ have the same look and are hardy to Zone 4.

For the past several years, Ralph has been growing some unique dwarf crabapples. They are finally large enough to dig and they are in good supply. Known as “The Round Table Series”, they hail from Lake County, Ohio, along Lake Erie. These grafted trees are quite hardy with the Malus sargentii as parentage.

Malus ‘Guinevere’ and Malus ‘Camelot’: Very dwarf, growing only 4 to 6 feet tall, they have a tight, compact growth habit that never needs pruning. Perfect for small spaces and lend themselves nicely as an accent tree in a perennial garden or as a focal point in a mass planting of ground covers.

Malus ‘Coralburst’: Grown as a standard, which means one tree was grafted to a different rootstock, the branching starts at approximately 42 - 45 inches off the ground. Its growth habit is perfectly round and the shape is maintained without pruning. Maximum size is eight feet tall and 12 feet wide. The flowers are, logically, coral in color. Hardy to Zone 3.

DAPHNE
Our supply has finally caught up with demand. These pink-flowering shrubs have a most heavenly fragrance. Plant them in a perennial garden or a shrub border, avoiding spots where winter snow will crash on them. Daphne keep their green and yellow variegated leaves well into December making them useful in winter flower arrangements.