Jay Vinskey gave a useful workshop on underutilized trees and shrubs at the Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Assocation Spring Garden Symposium last weekend. I attended because I may not be quite finished choosing shrubs for our new Greenfield garden, and I was looking for more suggestions. Small trees and shrubs are the elements I am counting on to make this a sustainable, low-maintenance garden.
Vinskey’s list included trees like paperbark maple, tupelo, ironwood, redbud, stewartia and pagoda dogwood. His shrub list included beauty berry, Carolina allspice, fringe tree, witch hazel and redvein enkianthus. Vinskey chose them because of their fine attributes of bark, blossom and autumn color or winter interest. Happily for me, I had already planted some of his suggestions.
It is important to know that Vinskey chose plants that were hardy in our region. The U.S. Department of Agriculture lists Greenfield as “Zone 5b,” which means plants will survive winter temperatures as low as minus 15 to minus10 degrees. Nowadays, I have to wonder whether we might actually be in Zone 6a, which is minus 10 to minus 5 degrees, and I would be willing to take a gamble on a slightly more tender plant like stewartia.
It is also important to know how much shade or sun a plant needs to thrive. However, I also have to take into account that my garden is very wet — at least during late winter and early spring — even when we are having a drought.
While listening to Vinskey, I was happy that I had already planted pagoda dogwood and Carolina allspice in my garden. The pagoda dogwood is a small tree with a horizontal arrangement of branches. The flowers are small and not particularly notable, but the sculptural shape of the tree is the delight. I saw a beautiful specimen in Minneapolis last summer; the tree’s gardener told me it did require some regular pruning to keep that clean shape at its best.
Calycanthus or Carolina allspice is a shrub that can take a fair amount of shade and produces dramatic dark red blossoms from May into July. And, of course, there is the sweet fragrance.
In addition, I’ve planted buttonbush, elderberry, spicebush and winterberry shrubs, which I personally think of as underutilized. Perhaps some gardeners would consider them too wild for a cultivated garden.
My perennial list includes joe pye weed, boneset, culver’s root, Echinacea, American burnet, turtlehead, bee balm, Siberian irises, Japanese primroses and bog rosemary, which is a water-tolerant groundcover. You can see that, in a sense, I have been cultivating a wetland garden. These plants don’t need to be in wet ground all the time, but they thrive when the soil is moist or water puddles around them. Some are familiar to flower gardeners, but others are more unusual — those who love native flowers may find them familiar.
The fact that I have so many native plants in my garden is because I wanted plants attractive to bees and other pollinators, including butterflies. Having a pollinator garden is one of my goals. Because honeybees and other pollinators are under so much attack by the use — and often overuse — of herbicides and pesticides, I want to play my part in supporting these vital creatures. Without pollinators many of our vegetables and fruits would no longer exist.
Bee Spaces Pollinator
Garden Award
This year, there will be a special opportunity and event at the Langstroth Bee Festival on Saturday, June 3. The Second Congregational Church, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, has cooperated with the Franklin County Beekeepers Association for several years, creating a bee festival that will entertain and educate children — and all the rest of us, too — about honey bees and the other 300-plus native bees that work hard to make sure we have good vegetables and fruits to eat.
Greenfield has a very special connection to honeybees, because the Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth served as the Second Congregational Church’s minister from 1840 through 1848. He is one of the people who recognized “bee space,” the specific distance that honeybees leave between their honeycombs so that they can fill or empty them.
Langstroth also invented the modern wooden beehive that allows for bee space between the removable frames.
This year, in honor of the church’s anniversary, special celebratory events are scheduled for the Bee Festival. Kim Flottam, editor in chief of Bee Culture Magazine and author of several books on beekeeping, will be the main speaker.
For those who do not keep bees but welcome them to their gardens, the Second Congregational Church and Franklin County Beekeeping Association will present awards to home gardens, farms, public or community gardens, or businesses that provide some space for bees. Former Gov. Deval Patrick will be on hand to present the awards.
The award is a beautiful pottery plaque designed and made by well-known local potter Molly Cantor. It is designed to be placed on a house or business, “designating you as a pollinator-friendly garden of distinction.”
Those who are interested in this award should fill out an application. Requirements are that the garden be in Franklin County and that no pesticides or herbicides are used anywhere on the property. For more information, check out the Bee Spaces pages on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.
This is the first time this award will be given, so if you think your garden might need a little updating to be eligible, remember, there is always next year.
Pat Leuchtman had written and gardened since 1980. She lives in Greenfield. Readers can leave comments at her Web site: www.commonweeder.com