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fireworks! the bottlebrush buckeye celebrates

July 2, 2010

AS IF IT KNOWS THAT FIREWORKS ARE CALLED FOR this weekend, the biggest old bottlebrush buckeye here, Aesculus parviflora (above), is in full bloom. Pow! A 15-foot-wide by 12-foot-tall mass of high energy, with each bloom more than a foot tall. Happy Fourth of July from me and my beloved old shrub (whose dramatic tale you can read here).

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Comments

Faith says:

July 2, 2010 at 10:23 am

Oh, lovely! I have a much smaller bottlebrush Buckeye (maybe 6 by 4?) that I can see from my kitchen window as I work. It is almost finished blooming now, so it is a treat to see yours still in all its splendid glory. I am very fond of the texture of its leaves as well.
Julie says:

August 2, 2010 at 10:39 am

Margaret,
Thank you for sharing this shrub with us a while back. I had to put my cat down this weekend. I decided to take his ashes home and bury them in the spot in the garden that he used to run out and sniff because a baby deer slept on it. My cat had such a big, antic personality. Now that I know about it, the bottlebrush buckeye seems the perfect shrub to plant in his memory.

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