Disappointing fall color - Persian ironwood

A Persian ironwood (Parrotia persica) was installed in our gardens about 14-15 months ago. It was decent sized, nicely shaped, and a reasonable price, so it seemed like a good idea. The tree has established itself in the medium back border of our lily pond, and looks handsome enough. Well, the fall color was pretty good this year, now most of the trees are pretty bare. Now some very cold weather is bearing down on us, so the fall color season will officially be over tonight. The Persian ironwood is still mostly green; only a few leaves are showing any sign of changing. In the same family as witch hazel and Fothergilla, Hamamelidaceae, the Persian ironwood is mostly planted for its fall color, and it's still green! What's up with that? Hard to say. The tree has plenty of flower buds, so it will flower in late winter/very early spring, right along with the witch hazels, but let's just say that in comparison the witch hazels put on quite a flowering display. The flowers are similar, but Persian ironwood lacks a corolla/petals although the anthers are red and a bit conspicuous, but not so much as Fothergilla. The fall has been so mild, perhaps a good hard frost was needed earlier to get things going. The genus is a nice example of an honorific name honoring Johann Jacob Friedrich Wilhelm Parrot, a German naturalist.

Under planted and under appreciated perennials - winter hazel

While many people are familiar with witchhazel (Hamamelis), very few people know about winter hazel (Corylopsis), a close relative.  The two are similar in being early spring flowering shrubs, and in TPP's experience, both are dearly loved by bad bunnies.  Both shrubs have a nice fall color display too.  Winter hazel is also a bit less hardy, so check on cold hardiness as the species differ (TPP has C. spicata shown in flower.), and it would suffer dieback at the bottom end temperatures of zone 5, which haven't been realized in quite a few years now.  Winter hazel is a handsome, somewhat delicate looking, but graceful shrub, but the pale to lemon yellow inflorescences are the real eye-catcher.  This is certainly not a feature plant, but finding room for one in a shrub border works very well.  Unfortunately the plant is rather hard to find in the trade, so TPP started with just a stick, and it's slow initial growth and it's delectability to bunnies got things off to a slow start, and as Mrs. Phactor keeps pointing out to me, when it comes to woody plants, time is not on my side, so buy the biggest you can find.  The images above are from the Wikimedia Creative Commons courtesy of Kenraiz and Kenpei respectively.

Friday Fabulous "Flower" - Winter Hazel

Winter hazel (Corylopsis spicata or related species) is a member of the witch hazel family and it's shrubby habit and growth are similar to witch hazel's. But winter hazel differs in one important respect; it has a much bigger and more dramatic floral display. An inflorescence of flowers, each with 5 pale yellow petals, dangles out of a large bud whose pale green bud scales add to the display. The shrub itself does best in sheltered areas here in the great midwest, it fact that may be the only place it does well at all. Although graceful in appearance, the shrub is not robust, so heavy snow can break twigs, and the bunnies love it having pruned mine back two or three times. The foliage is attractive and it grows in semi-shady to shady areas, and although Dirr rates it as zone 5 hardy, that's maybe a tad optimistic. -19 F produced some twig dieback. Winter hazel is a slow grower and probably won't get over 8-10 feet tall ever, with a similar spread. But it's a lovely floral display in the early spring.