Flowering trees have the greatest impact on the landscape for the least amount of effort. Because the flowers are all up in the air, they are totally unencumbered by weeds. These
smaller trees rarely overgrow their space, and when they do it’s generally easy to deal with. As the Japanese crabapple outside my office crowds the walk, I simply prune off the bottom branches. It now arches over the walk rather gracefully. By choosing different
species, you can keep the sky in flower for several months during the growing season. For photos of these trees, visit www.Regalplants.com

Serviceberry, star magnolia, crabapples, pagoda dogwood, mountain ash, tree lilacs and finally hydrangea make up the year’s chronology of blooms. Since this article comes out in late May, I’ll begin in the middle of the blooming year, with pagoda dogwood.

Cornus alternifolia, pagoda dogwood, is the northern cousin to the flowering dogwoods of the south. Prized for it’s horizontal branching habit, flat clusters of creamy white flowers,
and a gorgeous deep burgundy red fall color, I like to plant pagoda dogwood where you find it in nature – along the edges of woodland and meadows. Being shade tolerant, it’s a great plant to bring the feel of the woods into an edge landscape. Easily underplant them with shade-loving perennials, ferns, and groundcovers. We grow them in our potnpot field where they sell for $139.

Mountain Ash? Horsfords discontinued growing these borer traps last century as they nearly always succumb to the trunk-wrecking insects. However, several years ago we experimented with crosses of mountain ash and aronia and mountain ash and hawthorne. The one in my yard (I can’t remember which) has grown to 15’ in height with a beautiful
upright oval shape and so far no signs of the dreaded borer. With white flowers and showy
red or orange berries, we may be adding these trees to our list again. There are only ten or so trees available at this writing from that experimental planting, priced at $149 each.

Syringa reticulata, Japanese tree lilacs are among my favorites. With the bark of a cherry tree, a graceful small umbrella-like habit, and large creamy white flowers in late June, this tree flowers when the others have quit. Add that it can tolerate zone 2 winters and you’ve got a winner. After reading this description, I look forward to seeing alof you hardy souls from ski and mountain country. Our trees range from $99 and up. Use the Ivory Silk variety for a more upright habit.

Finally, when you think all trees have finished flowering, in the heat of the summer blooms the tree hydrangea. In addition to the old-fashioned
cemetery variety, Hydrangea paniculate “Grandiflora”, there are several newer varieties
that are more upright than the original with larger, more open flowers. We are growing
Kyushu, Pink Diamond, Tardiva and Unique in 10 gallon containers at $79 each.

PS - Redbud? Cercis Canadensis. Several years ago we found seedlings of redbud trees from Wisconsin that we decided to experiment with. We had tried this tree from other growers with poor success. To our delight, we dug a handful this spring and every one of
them took well to the digging and flowered profusely! By rights I shouldn’t be mentioning these, since they’re well done blooming by the time you get this… A tree for the collector. Look for them next to the Dawn redwoods (Metesequoia glyptostroboides) in the tree blocks.