Japanese Plum Yews

Lots of Clean Up and a Bit of Planting in Montpelier

Late this fall we got a long- term garden project that started with cleaning out the dead and horrible, moving what was pretty and salvageable, and planting a few key areas of the front garden.

The soft evergreen low lying Japanese Plum yew (Cephalotaxus Harringtonia Prostrata) works great as a foundation plant for this landscape. It likes shade and doesn’t get beyond 3 feet in height. In the spring the new growth has light green new foliage. We complemented these prostrate by planting its cousin Duke’s Garden plum yew. This variety grows about 5’ high across and has a more vase-like growth habit.

Brandywine Red Maple

A Noteworthy and New Shad tree

Last month we had a client who asked for us to plant a Maple tree that has the most brilliant fall color that we could find. A week later, we planted 5 Brandywine maples in the midst of her lawn that slopes down to a small lake.

This maple was hybridized as a cross between the “October Glory” and “Autumn Flame” maples. Acer Rubrum (the species name for red) is evident everywhere. Its flowers are red in May, red fruit then emerges, reddish stems and twigs and then red buds. In the fall comes the excellent red-orange leaf color.

What brings great joy to us hand weeders is that their helicopter fruit is sterile so you wont be pulling hundreds of tiny trees out of your flowerbed.

Brandywine Red Maple (Image from www.fknursery.com)

Christie lives in Manakin Sabot , Virginia where she manages a 3 acre garden. Her blogs are written from her 35 years as a personal and professional gardener.