Dazzling display: Oldies but goodies

One of my very favorite aspects of the gra­cious his­tor­i­cal homes of down­town Delaware is the daz­zling dis­play of heir­loom shrubs, trees, and flow­ers. They add just as much charm and inter­est to the prop­erty as the del­i­cate gin­ger­bread­ing of the door­ways and gables. I pas­sion­ately believe in the per­se­ver­ance of heir­loom plants and veg­eta­bles. I would like to share some of my favorite heir­looms with you, how care for heir­looms can dif­fer from mod­ern hybrids, and how to iden­tify your favorites.

My first selec­tion is actu­ally a native wild­flower found right here in Delaware County, the Vir­ginia Blue­bell. Blue­bells are a fab­u­lous heir­loom star of the mid-spring gar­den due to their ease of care and attrac­tive bloom. In mid-late April, when Blue­bells bloom, it is easy to see how they were given their name. Clus­ters of beau­ti­ful bell-shaped blooms appear on each stem. Unique because unlike many other heir­looms such as Black-Eyed Susans, Blue­bells thrive in shade and extreme mois­ture. Also an attrac­tive option because within a few short years three or four plants will have spread to fill your entire shade gar­den. Shortly after their bloom­ing in the early sum­mer, Blue­bells go dor­mant leav­ing room for your other shade-lovers like hostas to spring up with no com­pe­ti­tion. Vir­ginia Blue­bells are very self-sufficient and require lit­tle care. They are best placed in a shaded, moist area.

With­out a doubt my two favorite heir­looms are lilacs and peonies. They both have bewitch­ing fra­grance and make fab­u­lous cut arrange­ments. Lilacs bloom at the very end of April into early May. They have allur­ing, very large panicle-shaped blooms densely packed with hun­dreds of indi­vid­u­ally open­ing buds to cre­ate one very showy flower. They were an immensely pop­u­lar addi­tion to the land­scapes of the 1950-70s—as you may notice if you are in a neigh­bor­hood built in that time. In the ‘80s lilacs were hybridized to a dwarf vari­ety which became a very pop­u­lar option because they only grew to a max­i­mum of about four feet tall. Quite a con­trast from (as they’re com­monly called in nurs­eries) “old-fashioned” lilacs which can eas­ily grow 10 feet or higher. The dwarf lilacs still have a pleas­ant aroma but are not as strong. Their blooms are much smaller, not as dense, nor as richly col­ored. Also, in heir­loom vari­eties of lilac shades range from deep pur­ple to a soft laven­der all the way to white. When look­ing for these in nurs­eries, they will all begin with syringa fol­lowed by their com­mon name. For deep­est vio­let, the syringa Roy­alty is the best choice. Roy­alty is a late-blooming vari­ety devel­oped in the 1880s in Canada to resist late frosts. For the true “lilac” color, my per­sonal favorite is the Pres­i­dent Grevy. Fast grow­ing with heavy pro­fu­sion of blue-violet blooms this vari­ety never dis­ap­points. For white blooms, the two most pop­u­lar vari­eties are Angel White and Beauty of Moscow. Heir­loom lilacs are best planted in pairs for ensured pol­li­na­tion. And because they grow so effort­lessly it is advised to prune them back by about 1/3 every spring. The Pres­i­dent Grevy is usu­ally the eas­i­est to find in a nursery’s inven­tory, whereas the oth­ers may require a lit­tle bit more search­ing. Speak with some­one at your pre­ferred nurs­ery and they should be able to help you order them. Lilacs are best planted in full sun with well drained soil.

Another fix­ture of the his­tor­i­cal homes of Delaware’s land­scapes are peonies. Luck­ily, the var­i­ous shades of peonies are much more read­ily avail­able in nurs­eries than some of the heir­loom lilacs. Peonies bloom only once in late May through early June … many peo­ple asso­ciate them with Memo­r­ial Day as the first blooms always open just in time for the hol­i­day. Much like lilacs, peonies have a unique and iconic per­fume. The three most pop­u­lar shades of bloom are deep magenta, soft shell pink, and white; how­ever, shades of lemon yel­low, vivid scar­let and deep vio­let are also avail­able. Despite only bloom­ing once, their attrac­tive cut, glossy leaves make an attrac­tive and tex­tural addi­tion to the sum­mer land­scape. There are two main fam­i­lies of peonies, I am writ­ing about the gar­den peony or paeo­nia although there is also the Paeo­nia suf­fru­ti­cosa which is a tree peony. Accord­ing to OSU Fact­sheet HYG-1241–94 “… All peonies have five or more large outer petals called guard petals and a cen­ter of sta­mens or mod­i­fied sta­mens. Sin­gle forms have cen­ters of pollen-bearing sta­mens. Cen­ters of semi-double forms con­sist of broad petals inter­min­gled with pollen-bearing sta­mens. Dou­ble types have dense cen­ters of only broad petals …” The peonies most pop­u­lar are the dou­ble form petals, as they pro­duce one large very full flower. Single-form have only five petals with a cen­ter of yel­low, which are the sta­mens. Peonies should be planted in full sun with well-drained soil. A few of the best vari­eties of double-form blooms are: ‘Kansas’ (vivid magenta), ‘Fes­tiva Max­ima’ (white), ‘Nick Shay­lor’ (blush pink) and ‘Sarah Bern­hardt’ (baby or rose pink).

Both lilacs and peonies’ aroma trig­ger very happy mem­o­ries for many peo­ple and are a beau­ti­ful way to bring tra­di­tion and nos­tal­gia into your gar­den. Some even refer to lilacs as “the mother of mem­ory” because when their aroma sweeps through an open win­dow in the spring it takes you to another time. Heir­looms add that spe­cial sig­na­ture to your gar­den that defines the space by mem­o­ries both new and old.

Stephen Jones is an OSU Exten­sion Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­dener Volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Jul 2 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.