Fall Color In Tiger Gardens and the Upper Middle Tennessee Area

From In the Garden

Dave at The Home Garden hosts a Garden Blogger Fall Color Project showcasing fall color from garden bloggers all over the world. This is my contribution to the mix. I am highlighting upper Middle Tennessee fall color mainly in my garden unless otherwise noted.

Fall color in my garden starts with the wonderful camellias. I can't get enough of them! Most of my camellias are Camellia sasanquas. Some bloom in early to late fall and even early winter, while others bloom in late winter to early spring. This particular one is 'Jean May' and she blooms faithfully each year. I plan a post highlighting her many qualities. Directly behind 'Jean' is a 'Sango Kaku' coral bark maple. The two make a wonderful combination. I happen to be one of those people who like yellow with pink so if you are not, you'll not like it. But I forgive you:) I also included a long shot of this northern end of my home. This is one garden I consider a foundation planting. Here is the plant material (starting with the brown foliage on the far left): sensitive fern (already brown due to a frost), 'Maresii' variegated hydrangea, 'Compacta' holly, 'Jean May' camellia, PG hydrangea, 'Sango Kaku' Japanese maple, and finally you can see just a bit of the yellow foliage of 'Mt. Airy' viburnum.
While my garden has tons of oak trees and a few maples and even a few bits of color most of the oak trees in my garden and in the surrounding area simply turn a dull brown/gold and fall off. The oaks predominantly do not color up nicely. Sigh. I have to look outside of my garden for some lovely fall color sometimes. Here is a shot of 'Bradford Pears' at our local Wal-mart. Whatever you may say about Bradford Pears you can never say they do not have wonderful fall color. As a bonus their leaves last a long time. I do not grow these in my garden but do love the vivid red.
My new serviceberry is earning its keep. Though I was not fast enough to eat any of the berries, I am enjoying its orangey color and specifically sited it so that the evergreen cedar tree would set off the color. I couldn't resist adding in a shot of my neighbor's two horses. Meet Roz (white lady) and Sassy (brown lady). They are a lovely part of any season here. If you look around them you will see mainly oak trees. Can you see any color other than brown? Our oak trees in my area mainly turn brownish gold then drop the leaves. The view is dull at best so the horses help to spice it up a bit.
Here is a dogwood along my road in front of my home. I love reds in the garden and you can't beat dogwoods for some good color in the fall in this area. This is one of my favorite vignettes in my own garden. I actually planned this view in advance by taking advantage of the fall color of these two small trees. The orange tree in the foreground is a Korean Maple, the bright yellow tree in the background is a new purchase called Two Winged Silverbell (Halesia diptera magniflora). The clear yellow is most welcomed here. You can just make out the problem tree stump to the left of the two winged silverbell. It will slowly rot and add great organic matter into the soil. A post on problem trees will come up next week. Here is a close up of the Korean maple. This maple is a good substitute for Japanese maples in cold climates. I purchased this little tree from Don Shadows nursery last May so it has been in my garden about 18 months now. I really enjoy its orange color that glows. As it gets bigger the coloring is getting stronger. One last picture to leave you with. Seeing as how hydrangeas are my favorite shrub I could not leave this post without getting a picture of one or two as well. The Hydrangea paniculata (aka PeeGee) hydrangeas turn a lovely yellow in the fall. They are very sunny in the garden. The red shrub behind it is a burning bush (Euonymous alata). This is not a shrub I would plant today but when I planted it six years ago it seemed like a good idea. I do like the shrub as a whole but don't like its invasive tendency to self seed prolifically. Hostas are also yellowing up in the garden and are the groundcover mixed in with the PG hydrangeas above.

That's it for fall color here at Tiger Gardens and the surrounding upper Middle Tennessee community I live in. There is more of course. It seems like fall color has popped out all over this area overnight. On the way back from Nashville along Interstate 24 I was truly amazed at all the color we have going on here. I was thinking it would not be so colorful due to the warm weather and rains we've had but I was wrong. Hickories, sourwoods, sweetgums, maples, some oaks, dogwoods, tulip poplars, and many more shrubs are simply glorious! It is wonderful this year all around Tennessee. I hope fall is bright and colorful where ever you are located too.

in the garden....

Planting a Balled and Burlapped Serviceberry Tree

To all of you who guessed Serviceberry-congrats! You all know the best kept secret amongst good gardeners. Not really sure why more serviceberries are not planted, but they are purported to be wonderful trees. We'll see since Tiger Gardens now has its very own serviceberry in the garden.

When I planned out my Patio Garden, I had all intentions of purchasing a real tree to go into this garden. What is a real tree? A real tree is a big, very big tree, with a very big root ball to match. Prior to going to Hillside Gardens I called the owner and asked him if he had any serviceberries. He was not sure as this year's inventory was just now trickling in. He told me that if he had any, they would have been left over from last year and that he would check his inventory and call me back. While I waited for his call I called several local Evansville nurseries. None had any serviceberries at the time, but they all told me I should check back soon. I was not in the mood to wait as this is a good time to plant balled and burlapped large trees-when they are dormant. I also had to contend with getting the tree back to Tennessee from Indiana. Now was the time.

The owner of Hillside got back to me. He told me he had 'Autumn Brilliance' and 'Snow Cloud' serviceberry cultivars in stock. I hopped into the truck and headed his way. When I arrived I found that he did indeed have these two cultivars in stock, but both were growing in a shrub form, that is they had multiple trunks and low limbs. This was not what I had in mind for my garden. Well, since this particular nursery is a big commercial nursery that not only sells plants, but also installs them, there was an extra bonus sitting at the tree farm that was left over from a commercial job. It was a single trunked, 2" caliper serviceberry, cultivar 'Trazam', also known as 'Tradition'.

I had never heard of 'Trazam' and was at a loss because I did not research 'Trazam'. I was not sure this would work for me. The nursery worker had no idea what it was either. He simply informed me that it was left over from a commercial job and was not a tree they normally carried. 'Trazam' was not listed in any of their nursery books, but bless their hearts, they let me use their Internet so I could Google 'Trazam'. I found out 'Trazam' would work for me in the Patio Garden, so I bought it. I am hoping it does well as there really is not all that information on the web about 'Trazam'. I'm getting off track though, back to planting balled and burlapped.

Do you see how big that root ball is in the back of Mr. Fix-it's truck? Since the tree is a 2" caliper, normally you have a root ball that equals 1 foot for every inch of caliper; therefore the rootball on my tree was 2 feet in diamter. A pretty big rootball. The really heavy part though was probably more the tree itself. This tree is a good 12'-14' tall and hung out the back of the truck by at least 8'. What a big tree!

I first dug the hole for the tree. It is recommended to dig the hole for servcieberries quite large because the roots like to spread out. Since my garden was already raised by about one foot off from the grade and was turned into a big garden, I felt the roots could spread out in the entire garden. I did not dig the hole quite as big as it is recommended to dig (5 times the size of the root ball, hence a 10 foot hole), but dug quite a hole nonetheless. There it is above, though it is hard to see it. When planting trees, generally speaking you should dig a hole two to three times the size of the rootball, and no deeper than the rootball. The vast majority of trees die because they are planted too deeply. Some folks recommend planting trees an inch or so above grade to allow for settling. This is good advice. Serviceberries also need good drainage so going high rather than low works to my favor. Another benefit of planting in raised beds such as the one I built.

Okay, the hole is dug, the tree is off the truck, now what do I do with the balled and burlapped tree? Well, balled and burlapped, also known as B & B, is quite literally a tree with a root mass that is in a the shape of a ball, or bowl, that is usually then wrapped with heavy wire, then surrounded with burlap, and all tied together with rope. Most all burlap now a days is treated to retard rot. This was the case with my tree because I made a point to ask the nursery man who applied the burlap to the rootball while I watched. He said it is important to have a good burlap and wire cage in order to ensure the rootball does not fall apart. This rootball was pretty darned tight, and I doubt that even if it was completely bare that there would have been any damage to the rootball.
I prefer to remove both the burlap and wire cage from any trees I plant. You of course remove the ropes. Removing the cage and burlap is not a normal procedure, but one that is worth the extra effort as I believe the roots have an easier time growing out and away from the initial rootball into the surrounding soil. Additionally you don't have to worry about girdled roots when the wire cage is gone. Getting off the burlap was not a big deal. A few ropes, tons of spikes and the burlap was removed, the wire cage was a bit more difficult. I was told this tree was in the nursery for about one year. As such, the roots had filled in the wire cage pretty tightly. I was unable to get the wire cage off by pulling it, so I resorted to wire cutters and cut it away from my tree. Now I was ready to plant!

Jimmy and I rolled the tree into its spot, making sure to site it the way I wanted it, then I backfilled the hole. I do not normally add conditioners to my planting hole, but feel organic matter is important. So compost is always added to all holes I dig and plant plants into. I have never lost a tree, shrubs yes, trees no. Such was the case with this serviceberry. I filled the hole halfway up with soil, applied water and stamped the soil down, then filled the rest of the hole. I wanted to be sure there were no air pockets that would dry out the roots. Once all was packed down, I applied a mulch of newspapers and leaf mold, and let Mother Nature do the rest. I hope my new serviceberry does well and will be sure to post on its progress as time wears on.

So that is how I plant balled and burlapped trees, how do you plant them? Any other tips for planting balled and burlapped trees? And does anyone have experience with serviceberries? Ever heard of Trazam?

in the garden....

Note to local readers: Rural King has 'Autumn Brilliance' multi-trunked serviceberries at their Fort Campbell Blvd store if you are interested in purchasing one for your garden.