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golden days: is yellow spring’s favorite color?

by Ken Smith
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gold elm detailI KEEP WONDERING WHY (SCIENTIFICALLY SPEAKING) the first weeks of spring seem to be so inclined to glow in solid gold. Is it something about co-evolution and early season pollinators liking the color, or just a side effect of how we’ve selected what plants we make our gardens from over the history of the nursery industry? (These are the kinds of things I think about, you see.) Whatever the “why,” the “what” is pretty great, and so an homage to spring’s favorite color: yellow.

drift of hylomeconI love the way gold makes things seem to advance; the way it grabs my attention, screaming (never whispering). That’s a mass of Hylomecon japonicum, just above, and a detail of a golden elm leaf, top.

Click on the first thumbnail to start the slideshow, then toggle from slide to slide using the arrows beside each caption. Enjoy!

eranthis-2010
Ever notice how yellow early spring is? From the first winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis, to poke its head out of the leaf litter, the show goes solid gold.
hellebore-17
The orientalis hybrids of Helleborus come next for me, and I have a lot of yellow ones under the old apple trees here.
cornus-mas-gold-leaf
Up on the hillside, the Cornelian cherry or Cornus mas comes into bloom well before any Forsythia. This one (‘Aurea’) will also have gold leaves.
dirca-and-lindera
Not easy to photograph these subtleties of early April, but at the woodland edge Dirca palustris (shrubby left foreground) and an old spicebush (Lindera benzoin at back right) do their thing around shadbush (Amelanchier) time.
dirca-palustris
A detail of leatherwood, Dirca palustris, an underused native.
corylopsis-with-bee-2
Next up among spring woody plants: Corylopsis spicata, the spike winterhazel.
corylopsis-spicata-aurea-detail
I just bought a gold-leaf version of spike winterhazel (Corylopsis spicata ‘Aurea’) to extend the gold theme even once the flowers pass.
yellow-magnolia
The big yellow magnolia ‘Butterflies’ is an extravagant, fleeting dose of gold.
drift-of-hylomecon
Sheets of ephemerals crowd the shady gardens here including Hylomecon japonicum (which goes back underground after summer heats up).
uvularia-grandiflora
Charming little merrybells, Uvularia grandiflora, show off in April, too.
narcissus-hawera
Of course there are daffodils to paint the scene yellow. I’m currently in love with little Narcissus ‘Hawera.’
euphorbia-myrsinites
And then there are the Euphorbias, including E. myrsinites (the donkeytail spurge)…
euphorbia-palustris
…and much taller and slightly later Euphorbia palustris.
gold-heart-dicentra-and-kerria
By the time the Euphorbias are in full swing, the golden bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis ‘Gold Heart’) is in full glory, here nestled in a swirl of gold-flowered Kerria japonica ‘Picta,’ an easy old-style shrub for semi-shade.
stylophorum-diphyllum
The celandine poppy, Stylophorum diphyllum, has sown itself all over the shady beds here in the years we’ve lived together.
darts-gold-physocarpus
My first ninebark, or Physocarpus, was a tiny rooted cutting of P. opulifolius ‘Dart’s Gold’ I brought home from a Northern California nursery 15+ years ago. I still thrill at its first leaves’ unfurling each year, and now have five or six of this great eye-catching shrub.
gold-metasequoias
Three young gold-leaf metasequoias (dawn redwood) are starting to size up a bit on the hillside, where they draw the eye to the upper reaches of the garden. The variety is called ‘Gold Rush.’
emerging-hostas-gold
In the shade borders, gold-leaf hostas of various sizes are coming on by mid-April.
gold-elm-detail
A gold-leaf elm was a gift to me from a friend one birthday years ago. It positively gleams. I think it’s Ulmus procera ‘Viminalis Aurea’ (an English elm); Forest Farm Nursery sells a great selection of gold-leaf elms, by the way. The elm lives beside one of the ‘Dart’s Gold’ Physocarpus, forming a giant island of sunshine.
dandelion-detail-2
And then, of course there’s gold of another variety altogether, the worthless kind. This year, I have a bumper crop of dandelions. Stir-fry, anyone?
Categoriesannuals & perennials shade gardening slideshows trees & shrubs
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