hellebores | Black Walnut Dispatch

For when you get demoralized thinking about all the things you can’t grow under your black walnut, take heart. This venerable black walnut tree, located at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, VA, holds court over a lovely planting of magnolias and shade perennials:

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I did not check to see if the magnolias were marked, but they are probably a cultivar of M. soulangeana, and they are pretty glorious right now.

Underneath was a comely mixture of bear’s foot hellebores, other hybrid hellebores, Japanese Shield fern, and Virginia bluebells:

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This bed would be the envy of any woodland gardener, so those of us with black walnuts should not be feeling sorry for ourselves. I will say that the folks tending this garden add quite a bit of shredded leaves to their beds, which makes the soil nice and fluffy and the plants plenty healthy. My gut tells me that healthy, rich, organic soil tends to counteract the effects of juglone for plants that might be semi-susceptible.

However, I personally have hellebores, ferns, and bluebells growing very robustly under my black walnuts in terrible, dry soil. So I think these plants will grow well even if you don’t give them perfect duff.

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What I’m rrrrrrreally jealous of with this garden bed is that mid-layer — the magnolias — which connects the ground layer to the big black walnut and pulls it all together. I have not had as much success getting small ornamental trees to survive with my BWs….maybe I need to put M. soulangeana on my shopping list….

Definitely a “come hither” tree when in bloom:

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When it’s close to 70 degrees on February 18 it seems like there is very little in the world worth complaining about. Even the traffic on New York Avenue seems worth it once you’re finally at the National Arboretum walking among these beauties:

(Prunus mume and Edgeworthia in the Chinese/Japanese Pavilion Gardens)

Even the often dour blooms of hellebore knew enough to perk up and tilt their faces toward the sun:

(I know, I know, many hellebores are bred that way, let me just do my personification thing, will you?)

I liked the stark contrast between the black mondo grass and the old stalks of ornamental grass (Northern Sea Oats, I think):

Cherry blossoms! (I think it’s another Prunus mume, so technically apricot but I’m in a t-shirt in February so who gives a toss!)

Terrible photo of one of my favorite plants in the whole arboretum: Chimonanthus praecox:

This specimen is perched on a steep slope above the Anacostia River, where the winter sun warms its buttery yellow blooms, which emit THE most delicious fragrance in the floral world (except maybe Vibunum carlesii???) a sort of warm vanilla spice that definitely makes you forget it’s winter.

And last but not least my beloved Camellias. It always surprises me seeing such perfect, extravagant blooms on such awkward, lanky plants. Kinda like seeing a beautiful young girl with knock-knees and pigeon toes…all the more charming for their imperfections.