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).
THE LECTURE that he’s been giving for a number of years is not-so-subtly called “Kill Your Lawn.” Ecological horticulturist Dan Jaffe Wilder knows that starting over and creating an entire native habitat instead of a lawn isn’t for everyone. But Dan just wants to grab our attention and get us to start to make some changes at least in the way we care for the turfgrass we do want in our landscapes. And maybe give up a little square footage of it to some other kind of more diverse planting, too, like the wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana, inset). Alternative, more eco-focused styles of lawn care, along with some lawn alternatives is what he and I talked about on the podcast. Dan is Director of Applied Ecology at Norcross Wildlife Foundation in Wales, Massachusetts, and its 8,000-acre sanctuary. He’s also co-author with Mark Richardson of the book “Native Plants for New England Gardens.”
(Stream it below, read the illustrated transcript or subscribe free.)
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.
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.