Guest Post by Bob Hill
I have never fully understood my attractor to weeping plants and I really do n’t want to yield some nerdy - looking guy with a psychological science stage about $ 250 - an - time of day to recover out .
Truth be narrate , I ’ve spent some prison term drinking beer and exchanging parole like “ theorization ” and “ anosognosia ” with otherwise appealing psychiatrist who at some peak toward midnight will confess to being every bit as off - the - edge as their patients , only more expensive .
Weeping redbud ‘Ruby Falls’
That ’s when I start dropping horticulture intelligence like “ cleistogamic ” and “ amyloidal ” on them just to rase up the conversation . With any luck the barman will lock up and go home before we get toRostrinucula dependens .
The best I can picture , I just like the aesthetics of weepers . Contrary to what their name might mean , I never see a hint of depression in them , or even somberness . They are just unique , elegant , positive individuals taking off in a whole different series of directions .
At once .
Weeping redbud ‘Ruby Falls’
weep Cercis canadensis ‘ Ruby Falls ’
With deciduous weeping Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , I also like how they appear in the wintertime , poetical , spare - limb in a tangle , uneasily hold off for give and another bird ’s nest . They do nicely in small space , can survive in container or on a larger surgical incision of landscape . In one of the skillful trip of my sprightliness , I saw a weeping larch sprawling for about 30 metrical unit along a low fence in a New Zealand nursery ; 10 yards of horticultural happiness .
For some mysterious research on the causes of this weeping - plant phenomena I concern you to a2012 Associated Press articlewritten by Lee Reich , who at first opined that some tree weep “ because they require to grow down . ”
Weeping katsura in winter
His analysis picked up from there . Reich suggested a crying tree may have begun life story as a random seedling whose quirky organisation of factor directed its stems to weep , generally after a short catamenia of more normal vertical growth , which would also explain some late political event .
“ Perhaps the mutation was because of sun or temperature ; perhaps it was spontaneous , ” he write . “ At any charge per unit , all new prow and branches originating from those changed cellular telephone weep . ”
crying Tree , however , are very unlikely to bring forth like offspring from their seeds . They have to be grafted onto alike rootstock , preferably high enough off the primer to create a gracious waterfall gist . Then there is always that one arm outlier that wants to go back to growing straight up , another reason why God invented pruning shear .
Weeping balsam fir.
Weeping katsura in winter
It has become our wrapping - around tree . Maybe 25 foot improbable and wide , with drooping , enveloping limbs , we have placed a bench beneath it , a chandelier hanging overhead , a fireplace mantle off to one side . you’re able to cover beneath its wing , study a book of account under there , peer out at the world or else of always get it peering in at you . There are all the usual weeping suspects ; cherry Tree , Malus pumila tree , birch tree and Japanese maple . All fine , but my perfectly preferred is the weeping katsura ‘ Amazing blessing , ’ yourcercidiphyllum japoncium .
On a smaller scale , another favourite is our weeping redbudCercis Canadensis‘Ruby Falls . ’ It literally hang out along the driveway , a “ Welcome home plate ” tree diagram with tighter , nodding limb and empurpled - reddened leaves that comply the rosiness - red flush . Maybe it ’s just its size of it , but it seems a piddling more withdrawn , as if its hiding something under there .
With crying conifers , my experience , specially when they are small , is they are either happy in my landscape or soon dead . substantially I can tell , almost no one in the Midwest graft them for cut-rate sale . Here in Indiana , I mostly have to spell them from the West Coast or East Coast , which may aid explain the dead part , or find a local outlier with some a knack for the art . But that also seems to be a die breed .
For the most part , my best weepers just show up here in a heavy tan box devolve off from a brown UPS motortruck , and not especially good for the experience . Some of the box stores are beginning to stock pint - sized conifers in sets , but none of them are weeper , and too many of them are soon dead , too . It might have been helpful if some roots had been admit .
Weeping balsam fir .
The bald cypress seems to favour an unsloped stance , with limbs plunge down toward the earth . It always reminds me of an sometime man who loses his hair every fall and re - grows it in spring . We also have the “ Peve Mineret , ” which is a really tight cultivar that look like a nanus old man from the git - go . Two of our weeping conifers that have survive nicely admit our tears bald cypressTaxodium distichum , and weeping balsam fir , Abies balsamea .
Our balsam fir tree was perchance 18 inches tall when we stick it , and we ’ve put forward it like it was our own child . We made the error of plant it too close to another tree , and now the two are agitate it out for space , but I have n’t the sum to cut back one down or the prison term , money or equipment to graft the fir tree .
An substitute name for this tree is Balm of Gilead . reasonableness alone to keep it around .
Weeping conifers can occupy a small quad nicely , or go sprawl up , out and down across the landscape painting . They can also buddy - up , and , in time , are often find clumped together at one oddment of the conifer display garden , probably make play of bolt - uprighthomo sapiens .
Retired Louisville Courier - Journal columnist and author Bob Hill is possessor of the eight - acre Hidden Hill Nursery & Sculpture Garden near Utica , Indiana . Hidden Hill specializes in rare and strange plants , whim and unfettered moonlight . For more entropy seehiddenhillnursery.com .
