I know I say this every year – and then say it again every week for the rest of the season – but the gardens are prettier than ever. I’m not sure if it’s just that we have been so lucky weather-wise that everything is blooming more exuberantly than ever before or if it’s that the gardens really are growing more beautiful all the time. I suspect it’s a bit of both. I realize now since the trees have been so extra-pretty – not just the dove tree – that I should have been featuring a superstar every week. So without further ado, I give you the  fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus). Honestly, I’m not sure why this gorgeous little tree isn’t as ubiquitous as the Bradford pear. It offers so much more. For one thing it’s native to eastern US and perfectly happy to grow in full sun to partial shade (my own blooms away in too much shade.) and stays small enough (12-20′) to fit even in tiny gardens like mine. And right now, just in time for June parties, it has the most graceful dangles of fragrant white Great Gatsby-style feathers. Given where Blithewold’s fringe tree is, tucked against the wall along Ferry Road between the entrance gate and the garage, I wouldn’t be surprised if visitors missed it. But I am sorry about that. I can only hope that walkers-by have noticed and applauded its display. And now that you know where it is, maybe you’ll make the detour to pay it a visit and compliment too.

I’m more certain that everyone who has visited Blithewold this week noticed the Rose Garden. It stopped me in my tracks and I wish I could have spent every moment in it. (I did find excuses for daily visits…) The chestnut rose (Rosa roxburghii) has been blooming its branches off and the foxgloves alone demand hours of rapt attention. Not to do anything – they don’t seem to need staking (knock wood) and they certainly don’t need deadheading yet – but just to stare. Truly, we have never had such a stupendous display. The white ones (Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora a.k.a Digitalis purpurea ‘Alba’) are a biennial grown from seed by Julie Morris, our director of horticulture, emerita. While Gail and I both remember watering the flat of seedlings in the greenhouse, neither of us can remember when last year (was it June or September?) we actually planted them in the garden. Let this be a lesson to me that no detail is too small to record. With any luck (and if we leave some deadheads standing), these will seed themselves back in the garden for next year, but we’ll start another batch in the greenhouse for insurance too. Now that we know we can’t live without them.

Can’t live without the ornamental onions either. Last october we planted a fresh batch of the firecracker Allium schubertii - they do seem to diminish over time. My other favorites include the tall white and purple dotted (what’s up with me lately? I thought I didn’t like white flowers…) A. ‘Silver Spring’, tiny A. caeruleum and another dainty white one, A. amplectens ‘Graceful Beauty’. They and the giant purple lollipops of ‘Ambassador’ are so outstanding that I don’t even mind that some of the roses haven’t broken bud yet. Next week, when all of the roses are blooming along with the delphinium that are just about to pop, the garden might just knock my socks totally off. And yours too if you visit. (You should.)

Is your garden more beautiful than ever too? Do you have new (or old) favorites for June? –Do you have a fringe tree?

It’s a lucky visitor whose gaze turns east along the path between the mansion and the Enclosed Garden, instead of west across the blooming North Garden and Great Lawn to Narragansett Bay. The western view is a compelling one to be sure and even I am caught up short by it every time I walk by. But right now to the east there’s an even more spectacular view. If slightly more subtle. The Davidia involucrata, otherwise known as the dove tree, handkerchief tree, ghost tree or laundry tree (I would never call it that) is in full bloom.

Blithewold’s dove tree was given to Marjorie Lyon in 1973 for her 90th birthday (along with several other trees including the Stewartia pseudocamellia that died in this past winter’s blizzard). It was a particularly interesting gift because it was unlikely that she’d live long enough to see its flowers. And in fact, she didn’t. (They usually take about 10 years to come into bloom.) But like so many of the trees at Blithewold, it was planted and cherished for its promise to provide future generations with an eyeful of gorgeousness. So we are the recipients of that gift — a generous one this year because it seems more loaded with flowers than ever.

I always try to remember to walk over to the tree in late-April/May because a few days before it becomes showy enough to catch anyone’s eyes from the path, the flowers emerge along the branches like teeny-tiny burgundy-black buttons flanked by teeny-tiny green bracts. They’re totally adorable. And almost fast enough to watch, the bracts grow into dangling tissues that remind me of homemade Halloween ghosts, and the flowers expand into fuzzy greyish spheres. Right now it’s as beautiful — and strange — from a distance as it is close-up.

Although the dove tree would seem to deserve a more front-and-center placement, it was tucked back against a windbreak of rhododendron and chamaecyparis for protection because with a zone rating of 6-8, it’s considered marginally hardy here (we’re Zone 6b/7). It hails from central China and wants full sun to partial shade and the ideal garden combination of organically rich, moist, well-drained soil. It will stay in the 20-40′ range and has a pyramidal habit. So pretty.

Do you have a dove tree or have you seen one in bloom? What did you think of it?

Cupid’s dart hit a bull’s-eye this morning. Another snowfall – a sugar dusting this time – helped me realize something that I’ve known all along without knowing it. I am capable of becoming every bit as attached to places as I am to people. It’s so obvious: I am in love. Blithewold, will you be my Valentine?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I just can’t help myself. The Japanese maples are totally knocking my socks off.

Since it’s forecast to be a beautiful weekend, why not come see for yourself? (The pictures don’t do it justice. Standing underneath one of these trees is like being submerged in pure pigment.) If you do visit, you’ll be guaranteed to catch a glimpse of what’s in the works for Christmas Sparkle too… (I’m not going to give that away here just yet.)

I think we gardeners are generally pretty good at finding color during a black&white winter but I still always feel like I should stock up before fall’s blaze dims. Even in the half-light of a gray day, oranges and reds, on Japanese maples especially, are so super-saturated right now that their leaves seem to fuse into a solid block of intensity. And I credit the yellow leaves for giving everything that strange glowy tawny tint though I should probably give all the shades of brown their due for that too.

And of course I wouldn’t want to diss the few things still – or starting to bloom. In honor of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day over at May Dreams Gardens (tomorrow), here are a couple of tried and true November bloomers. — I say these are November bloomers but the autumn flowering cherries (Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’) in the Rose Garden have been my poster children for December the last few years. Evidently they loved our recent run of Indian Summer days. (Please excuse the blur – it’s impossible to get those tiny flowers to stand still on a windless day let alone a breezy one.)

Along with hording color, we’re also starting to forage for the bits and bobs we like to have on hand for embellishing the wreaths made in our upcoming (sold out!) workshops. Last year nature withheld her usual bounty but this year, not only is she being generous again, but we managed to find some treasures before they were whisked away with the fallen leaves. My only difficulty with task of foraging is having the fortitude to quit when tubtrugs and pockets are full. (I’m just as obsessive when I go to the beach. At least sweetgum seedpods don’t weigh as much as stones…)

Are you taking in Autumn’s last flash? And are you filling your pockets with treasures too?