Growing for Success | Springtime symphony of blossoms

By Riverside Gardens

Sep 12, 2024

Pink petals of prunus elvins. Photo by Contributed

Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.

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After all that wind the other week, it is so good to see the delicate blossoms of spring making a defiant, showy display; the resilience of nature is pretty impressive at times.

You don’t have to go far to see ornamental pears, flowering cherries, flowering plums, crab apples, weeping cherries and numerous varieties of acacia and grevilleas all putting on a show.

Walking into the garden centre forecourt, you are met with a very bright, colourful display of a variety of ‘Cercis’ eastern redbud trees, ‘Prunus elvins’ flowering plums and weeping cherries. It is easy to see spring is well and truly here.

A lot of people are not familiar with ’Cercis’ redbuds, but they grow very well in our region; they love the heat, thrive in full sun-exposed positions, and have characteristics that help them survive extended periods of dry. Being deciduous trees, they are dormant through the frosty months and will allow winter sun into the garden.

We carry several varieties of these in the garden centre, the most popular being ‘Cercis forest pansy’. This variety became well-known about 10 years ago and has continued to grow in popularity ever since. It grows to around six metres by six metres in size, forming a small umbrella-shaped canopy. The bright pink flowers hug the bare branches in spring before deep purple heart-shaped foliage emerges that then slowly transforms to purplish-green over summer. This is followed by a multi-coloured autumn display in tones of red, apricot and gold.

‘Cercis Avondale’ is a smaller growing variety, reaching three metres by three metres at maturity. They are a very showy cultivar with one of the most spectacular flower displays of the redbuds. Their pink flowers form tight heads that resemble coral all along the branches before their green leaves appear. Of all our Cercis varieties, the ‘Avondale’ is one of the earliest to flower.

The other early-flowering cultivar we carry is ‘Cercis faerie queen’. Its floral display would be just as good as ‘Cercis Avondale’ but has rose-purple-coloured flowers instead. It also grows to about the same shape and size. Like the other ‘Cercis’ varieties, their heart-shaped leaves tend to fold over slightly during times of extreme heat and dryness, helping them limit their water loss.

Other varieties we stock include ‘Cercis merlot’, a slightly smaller growing variety with purple foliage. ‘Cercis aurelian’ is six metres by six metres, with golden foliage tending to lime green as the season progresses. It should be noted that this cultivar can suffer some heat scorch on its foliage in full sun. The last of the tree-type varieties is ‘Cercis Oklahoma’, which grows about the same size as forest pansy but a bit more upright and with green foliage. ‘Oklahoma’ is one of the best heat-resistant selections of the redbud cultivars.

We also have a short-growing weeping cultivar, ‘Cercis Covey’. This is a more unusual ‘Cercis’ that is grown on a single stem to about one-and-a-half metres-high, that then cascades back down to form a beautiful weeping feature. It has lavender-pink flowers followed by deep green foliage.

‘Cercis faerie queen' brightens up the garden. Photo by Contributed

A larger growing weeping feature tree that looks great right now is the very popular weeping flowering cherry. In recent years, the narrower growing varieties have been in greater demand, but keep in mind that you still need to allow about three metres in width for these trees at maturity.

Weeping cherries are grafted trees where a weeping variety is grafted on to the top of an upright variety’s straight stem. They are usually grafted off at either 1200 or 1800 centimetres-high, where the branches will grow up slightly before cascading down, forming a beautiful feature. The trunks themselves become a feature in their own right as they expand, becoming quite chunky and glossy in appearance with coloured bands up to the graft.

Wider-growing varieties like ‘Cheal’s’ (double pink), ‘Subhirtella Pendula Rubra’ (single pink) and ‘Shimidsu Sakura’ (double pink) can reach about five to six metres wide. These are substantially bigger than ‘snow fountains’ (single white) and ‘pink snow showers’ (single pink).

So, with this up-and-down weather, if you are finding it hard to get in the mood for spring, take a step into the nursery forecourt and be inspired by the abundant spring blossom.