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Spring Gardening Tips

Selecting and Planting Magnolias

Now is a great time to select and plant magnolias. The Morris Arboretum has over 75 different magnolias. Stop by to check out the different varieties and get ideas for your own garden.

On of the most popular new varieties is the butter-yellow flowering variety called Magnolia Elizabeth. This new hybrid does best in full sun but tolerates light shade. It grows fast and will eventually become a big shade tree.

Other brighter yellow forms will soon be coming on the market but the paler forms combine better with the other pink and lavender magnolias. They are also bred to bloom later than most magnolias and therefore are more likely to miss a late frost which sometimes kills the flowers.

There is also a new line of later blooming magnolias in shades of pink. They have girls names like Judy, Susie, Randy, and Pinkie.

Magnolias are available from better garden centers and from specialty mail order nurseries.

For more information on magnolias, click here.

Dogwoods

Dogwoods are one of the most beautiful of all our native trees and they are just coming into bloom now. The flower clusters are surrounded by four white, showy bracts, which are really a modified leaf.

There are also varieties with pink bracts.

Dogwoods are native to the forest edge and understory so they grow best in cool, lightly shaded sites.

They are also finicky about soil. They grow best in moist, but not too wet soils, that are acidic with lots of organic matter. When they are not in ideal conditions they are more subject to insect and disease problems.
If you have an existing dogwood, keep its entire root zone mulched with organic materials like rotted leaves or shredded bark. Also, water it once a week in times of drought. Fertilize lightly with and acidic, organic slow release fertilizer.

Water newly planted plants so they get off to a good start before summer sets in.