Why aren't the Swiss known for watering cans?

Dramm 10-liter watering can action shot. Check out those bold and beautiful French Marigolds!

Now that I own a Dramm 10-liter watering can, I can't imagine ever needing to buy another watering can. (Unless of course I lose the one I've got now, which seems unlikely given that it's bright red!)

Made in Switzerland (!), this watering can seems incredibly sturdy, well-made and perfectly balanced. It just feels solid.

I mean, the Swiss get all the well-deserved praise for making delicious chocolates and precise timepieces, but I think they're getting shortchanged on their watering can prowess.

Available in red or green colors (I recommend the cherry / fire engine red that reminds me of a red Swiss Army Knife), the 10-liter Dramm can holds over 2 gallons of water.

It's true that the can does not come with a rose - the sprinkler-type attachment that often fits on the end of a watering can. In fact, Dramm does not make a rose for this 10-liter can. On the bright side, the absence of a rose means you can water these large plants more quickly without waiting forever while the water sprinkles out. (That said, I'd suggest that you still take your time and try to disburse a gentle stream of water while tilting the can so that the nozzle is relatively close to the ground. Watering with a robust stream of water from a large height is a recipe for soil compaction, runoff, splashage (technical term that I just made up) and all sorts of undesirable calamities.

Full disclosure: Dramm sent me a complimentary watering can to test in the garden. In adding to the can, Dramm also sent me a complimentary solid brass adjustable hose nozzle for testing purposes.

My nozzle is American-made. And shiny. And powerful. 

The nozzle is Made in the USA and seems darn near indestructible. Although I didn't try it, I imagine I could probably run over the nozzle with my car and that it would be no worse for wear. Since the nozzle has so few parts, it easily comes apart for cleaning should any dirt start gumming up the works. Another bonus - brass doesn't rust.

Again, while the all-brass Dramm nozzle might be a bit more expensive than a plastic counterpart, I imagine it would be the last nozzle you'd need to buy. (Unless of course you lost it and needed to buy a replacement.)

In gardening as in other spheres of life, I believe it's generally a good idea to try to buy a few high-quality products rather than cheaper junk with a shorter shelf-life.

Dramm's products clearly fall into that high-quality, long-life category.

So would I recommend both products? Yes, but with reservations. With the watering can, just be aware that the lack of a rose means it's great for watering trees and shrubs, but not really suitable for spritzing seedlings. (You'd be likely to wash them away in a miniature tsunami.)

As for the hose nozzle, I think my expectations were misplaced or inflated. I had thought I would use it to water plants, but the stream of water emerging from the nozzle was so strong that I quickly switched back to my old leaky plastic nozzle with a wide range of adjustable settings.

Looking at Dramm's website, I see that the hose nozzle is advertised for "cleaning walkways, benches and equipment." That makes sense and I think the "powerful stream" of water produced by the Dramm nozzle would be ideal for any of those purposes.

Where to Buy: 

Naturally, both the Dramm 10-liter watering can and the adjustable brass hose nozzle are available via Amazon, as well as at many other online retailers and offline garden centers.

Are Hellbenders actually Canaries?

Take a good look at this Hellbender. You might not get a chance to see one for real in the wild.
Photo by USFWSmidwest

I read a couple of disturbing stories last Friday about the disappearance of the Hellbender, North America's largest salamander, whose populations are crashing in the wild.

What's causing the Hellbender decline? Scientists don't know for sure, but a likely culprit seems to be declining water quality. Since salamanders breathe through their skin and live in creeks and streams, they could be the canary in the coal mine indicating problems with our water supply.

So how can we help save the Hellbender? The Christian Science Monitor says "Researchers are urging landowners to plant trees and grasses along rivers to improve the water quality."

So that does mean you're off the hook if you don't live alongside a body of water? I doubt it. One way or another, much of the water that runs off our lawns and hardscapes during a storm probably ends up in a river, creek, stream, lake or ocean (unless it goes directly into a water treatment facility).

If all or most of the land on your property consists of short lawn and hard spaces that can't absorb water, you're going to have a lot of untreated runoff. If you spray herbicides (weed killers) or pesticides or fertilizers on your lawn, some portion of those treatments may wash off in a heavy rain and make their way into bodies of water.

So how can homeowners help?

1. Reduce the lawn and add more ornamental grasses, perennials, trees and shrubs that will slow down and absorb runoff during heavy rains, giving bacteria and other soil organisms a chance to sequester and clean the water. (These plantings can of course offer many other wildlife benefits - flowers for bees and butterflies, nectar for hummingbirds, berries for birds - while reducing the acreage we need to cut with polluting mowers.)

2. Stop spraying and treating the lawn with herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers. I'm not guilt-free here. I don't spray any pesticides or fungicides on my lawn, but living in a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses kind of neighborhood, there's a mandate to keep the lawn green and weed-free. But I'm trying to reduce the size of the lawn, because there's no mandate about what sorts of trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses and perennials I plant -- and if I plant those thickly enough, they'll do a pretty good job of suppressing weeds on their own without any spraying. (At least that's been my experience so far in the landscape beds I've already installed.)

Together, perhaps we can save the Hellbender. And ultimately, if the water is cleaner, we'll help ourselves too.

Can / Should Botanic Gardens Lead the Way to a Healthier Diet?

The shady, enticing patio of the new Hive Garden Bistro (photo courtesy of Denver Botanic Gardens)

I was excited to read the news from Denver -- the Botanic Gardens there recently unveiled an expanded and upgraded cafe called The Hive Garden Bistro.

Why the excitement? After all, I don't live in Denver.

I guess it's because I think botanic gardens can help lead the way to showing America how to eat a healthier, more local and more wholesome diet.

The part of the press release that really caught my eye was the idea that some of the produce for the dishes served in the cafe would be sourced from the adjacent Le Potager Garden and the Chatfield CSA.

CSA = Community Supported Agriculture. In my own part of Tennessee, I've seen CSAs offered by vendors at farmers markets, where customers pay a lump sum upfront at the start of the season in exchange for weekly deliveries of fresh produce chosen by the farmer. Farmers benefit from a reliable income stream. Customers develop closer relationships with the producers of their food, and they also get a first-hand idea of the risk involved in farming. If a heat wave or drought wipes out a crop, they might have a meager harvest some weeks.

The Chatfield CSA, I've just discovered, is a CSA that's actually run from a 5-acre working farm inside a 70-acre nature preserve and garden owned by the Denver Botanic Gardens in the Denver suburb of Littleton. Very cool!

But I might even be a little more excited by the idea that some of the produce that shows up on the plates at The Hive Garden Bistro comes from Le Potager edibles garden growing right next to the cafe. I'm hoping that will open the eyes and minds of some of the visitors to the garden - adults and children alike - who may have come to see beautiful flowers or dazzling Chihuly glass sculptures, but who will walk away thinking about a delicious meal they had at a cafe that was flavored using ingredients that they could actually see growing alongside the restaurant.

Le Potager edible garden (photo courtesy of Denver Botanic Gardens). Even though my own gardening style is much less formal and ordered, I love how Denver Botanic Gardens is showing that edibles can be ornamental too -- which of course is part of the essence of a potager!

(What sort of dishes will incorporate Le Potager ingredients? I'm sure the menu will change with the season, but right now I've been told that chard from Le Potager shows up on the cafe's hummus plate, lettuce from Le Potager and the CSA gets used in cafe salads, and there are plans to soon incorporate herbs from Le Potager into refreshing agua fresca drinks.)

I know that plenty of progressive restaurants are driving the locavore farm-to-table dining experience, and I applaud all of those efforts.

But I wonder if botanic gardens can play an especially important role in encouraging people to eat local, fresh fruits and vegetables?

After all, many visitors come to botanic gardens prepared to see something beautiful and to learn something new. Should every botanic garden have an edibles section so that visitors could how lettuce grows, how tomatoes ripen and measure whether the corn is as high as an elephant's eye?

My own experience - and I think the experience of many other folks - is that fresh-from-the-garden produce looks better and tastes better than mass-produced products that have been trucked, flown and shipped from thousands of miles away.

And when fresh food looks better and tastes better, it stands to reason people will be more likely to enjoy it and want to eat healthy fruits and veggies more often!

Simplistic? Perhaps. But I think there's some logic to that line of thought.

Of course, I believe that home grown produce tastes best. When you grow your own tomatoes and lettuce, that's when you really get excited about having salad for dinner. Again, I think botanic gardens can lead the way here, educating the public on edible gardening. That's exactly what Denver Botanic Garden is doing with a range of edible gardening classes on topics like succession planting, overcoming pest and disease problems and learning how to grow a year-round edible garden -- even in Colorado!

Finally, I hope that botanic gardens could encourage gardeners to look beyond the tried-and-true homegrown crops. Just as botanic gardens can open eyes and minds to trying new types of ornamental plants, I'd hope they could help people discover new and amazing edibles. For instance, before we visited Powell Gardens a few years ago outside Kansas City, neither my wife nor I had ever (knowingly) tasted mustard greens (Brassica juncea). We were both hooked from the first zesty bite! Now we've grown it at home several years and it's become one of our favorite salad and cooking greens. It's also easy-to-grow (our two plants volunteered this spring and we've got a bumper crop of seeds ripening in the garden) and reportedly packed full of nutrients.

What do you think? 

Should botanic gardens - which are typically strapped for space and resources - redirect some of their energy from ornamentals to edibles? 

Could this really make an impact on changing America's eating habits for the better? 

Personally, I give major props to Denver Botanic Gardens and hope that other botanic gardens - including our own Cheekwood here in Nashville - will follow in their footsteps!

Scott Arboretum Snapshots - Townhouse Crape Myrtle, Western Redcedar, Prairie Dropseed, Japanese Falsecypress and more!

A couple of weeks ago, I visit the Scott Arboretum on the campus of Pennsylvania's Swarthmore College with my sister and my father. In fact, we were lucky enough to be able to visit on a day when the arboretum was offering one of its free monthly tours. (The dates for these tours are posted on the arboretum's calendar.)

The arboretum was established 85 years ago and today there are many beautiful mature trees.

I've got to say I'm a little jealous of the students, faculty and staff who get to spend so much time on this beautiful campus!

Here are a few of the plants at the arboretum that struck my fancy:

One bee, so many flowers... I think this is a magnificent clump of Stachys officinalis, a.k.a. Bettony (but I'm not 100% sure on my identification)

A stately Chamaecyparis pisifera "Filifera" (Japanese Falsecypress). I understand that this variety typically grows around 30-feet tall (per University of Kentucky). Clearly I just got a shot of the trunk here, but I'd guess this tree was taller than 30-feet. I was interested in how bare it appeared at the base, since in the other shots I've seen of this tree, the canopy seemed fuller all the way to the ground.

Beautiful bark and fluted trunk on a Cladastris kentuckea, American Yellowwood tree

And here's a shot of the sun-dappled Cladastris kentuckea canopy. Just a beautiful tree. Can't understand why American Yellowwood is not more popular in commerce. Perhaps because the tree reportedly doesn't start flowering until it's 8-10 years old? But I've never even seen a flowering American Yellowwood and I'm still smitten with the beauty of its other attributes.

Here's an interesting relatively large-scale planting of Sporobolus heterolepsis (Prairie Dropseed) used as a lawn alternative. I love the texture, although I don't know whether this 'lawn' can hold up to foot traffic. 

Thuja plicata "Excelsa", Western Redcedar, gorgeous feathery foliage on this evergreen. I was under the impression that T. plicata preferred cool and moist forest conditions in the Pacific Northwest, but it seemed to be thriving in this Pennsylvania arboretum. I'd love to hear from other gardeners in the East - especially the Southeast - who might have experience pro or con with this species. 

Japanese Crape Myrtle - Lagerstroemia fauriei "Townhouse" -- Not your typical crape myrtle (the usual species is L. indica), the Japanese Crape reportedly grows bigger (up to 40-60 feet tall), has fragrant flowers plus excellent resistance to powdery mildew and artistically exfoliating bark. These crapes weren't flowering when we visited in June. In the Mid-Atlantic, I'm guessing they probably don't flower until late summer (August?), but the foliage, form and bark were beautiful enough that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to any mid-Atlantic gardener who had the space. Like many places in the East, the Philadelphia area had a brutal winter in 2013-14 and this mature Townhouse crape apparently made it through unscathed. On the flip side, reportedly has the chops to withstand the heat and seasonal drought in Florida too. What a tree!

A Beautiful Bevy of Blooms in the Early July Garden

The hit parade continues into July.

All of these photos were taken this morning (July 3, 2014).

To all my U.S. readers, I send you early Happy Independence Day wishes!

A panicle of bright fuchsia crape myrtle blooms. In previous years, this crape has been stricken with powdery mildew. After pruning last year to open up the canopy, it seems to be faring better this year (so far). While the white Natchez crapes attracts loads of bees - particularly in the first few weeks of its bloom - I have not noticed any bees visiting this crape.

Bee on Agastache foeniculum "Golden Jubilee" 

I took a step back to give you an idea of the size of this one Agastache. It's HUGE and loaded with flowers. There are perhaps a dozen seedlings scattered around from last year's seeds -- and the plant didn't have nearly as many flowers last year. I wonder how many seedlings I'll get next year?! :-o

OK, no flowers here, but the foliage of Baptisia australis is looking lovely, cool and not-too-floppy, despite the fact that I situated it in too much shade.

Bumblebee visiting Cosmos bipinnatus

Dianthus gratianopolitanus "Firewitch". I did a little experiment a few weeks ago where I trimmed back the old flower stalks on one plant and left the other untouched. As you can see, both are experiencing sparse rebloom. I think the unpruned plant actually has a few more flowers, but the pruned plant looks neater. 

Bee on Gaillardia x grandiflora "Sunset Cutie"

Cheerful bright blooms on Heliopsis helianthiodes "Summer Sun". I wouldn't say it's a wildlife magnet yet, but as the plant gets bigger and more established, it's attracting more bees and birds than last year. 

Hibiscus moscheutos / Hardy Hibiscus. I think this is "Luna". So far, not as much sawfly damage as in previous years (knock on wood products), which means more flowers are opening and the foliage looks much healthier. 

Bee on annual sunflower. I order Lemon Queen sunflower seeds this spring. I seem to have gotten an assortment on random sunflowers of all shapes and sizes. Can't say that I'm devastated (many of them are pretty and interesting in their own ways), but I'm a little peeved.

Two small bees on a soaring annual sunflower over 6-feet tall.

Here's another giant sunflower - maybe 7-feet tall. Even though the flower hasn't opened yet, I thought the bud was so sculptural that it deserved its own portrait.

Here are two bees collecting pollen on a Cucumber Leaf Sunflower (Helianthus debilis Cucumerfolius). I didn't plant any of these seeds this year, which means this sunflower can self-sow in a 6b winter (low -2 Fahrenheit) without any insulating snow cover. The blooms are smaller on the Cucumber-Leaf sunflower, but the plants grow quite tall (~6 feet), start blooming a little earlier than the typical Helianthus annuus and are well-branched with lots of flowers per plant. The bees like the pollen, the gold finches visit for seeds, the squirrels seem to leave them alone.

Here's my row of self-sown Cucumber Leaf Sunflowers. Not exactly "front of border" height, but I don't have the heart to rip them out and I love the floriferous display!

Cherry tomatoes are ripening. These are Super Sweet 100s, purchased as seedlings. I also have lots of self-sown cherry tomatoes from previous years. I've done a pretty poor job of staking them this year, so what I really have is a jumble, but I imagine it will be a productive jumble if I can wade through the stems to pick the cherries. I also have some critter (squirrel? rabbit? chipmunk? groundhog?) that seems to be preying on the low-hanging fruit, both red and green.

No flowers here either, but I'm still loving the Viburnum dentatum foliage. This plant has gumption. I kept it in a garage all winter with barely any water. Not surprisingly, it died to the roots, but has since roared back from the roots with 2-3 feet of new growth and it's still going. I do notice (unhappily) that there seems to be some leaf damage. Perhaps the culprits are the lacebugs that attack a nearby Aronia melanocarpa? 

Bee on Vitex agnus-astus flower spike

Two more bees on Vitex agnus-castus (Chaste Tree)

Can't resist another shot of bees on the Vitex. When in bloom, this plant attracts bumblebees in particular from dawn to dusk!

A step back to give you an idea of the total number of flower panicles on the Vitex bush. This is its second full year in the garden, and after some judicious pruning, I'd say it's about twice as big this year as last year, despite our zone 6b winter (-2 Fahrenheit). It leafed out late - and even so the leaves were frozen to much by a late freeze - but as you can see, it's since recovered and thriving. I think it's added at least 2 feet of vertical growth and made lots of bees very happy!

Thou Shalt Not Murder (Crape Myrtles)

The horror! Murdered crapes with gnarly knuckles
Photo via woodleywonderworks

Why is crape murder such a terrible, terrible thing?

Well, for one thing, it mutilates the trees and makes them look awful in winter. And since crapes take a long time to leaf out (at least here in Tennessee), that means they're looking like death warmed over for about six months.

The other reason is that when you have a hard winter, plants that are stressed by brutal, repeated, extreme pruning will often have a harder time surviving and recovering than plants that were pruned gently or not at all.

To wit:

Here is one of our Natchez crape myrtles. Notice how it is fully leafed out and flowering in mid-June.

Natchez Crape Myrtle leafed out and flowering in mid-June in Middle Tennessee

Here's a bird (not sure what kind) that was sheltering in the midst of the crape myrtle foliage on a hot day.

The Natchez crape myrtle in full flower attracts lots of bees. (Not as many bees as the Hypericum, but lots of bees nonetheless.) I'm no expert on bee identification, but it looks as though the crape myrtle attracts bumblebees, honey bees and also some smaller native bees. The bees move so fast, that it's hard to capture them in a photograph, but if you look closely, you can see a bee in the middle-right section of the flower cluster in the center of this photo.

Now let's check out the murder scenes.

These are some other crape myrtles on our street, also in mid-June. Notice that these crapes all look pitiful.

I've seen others around town that looked equally bad or worse, but I wasn't about to cause a car accident stopping the car to grab a pic of the carnage:

Murdered crape myrtle #1

Murdered crape myrtle #2

Murdered crape myrtle #3

Murdered crape myrtle #4. These are probably the most horrifying examples of the results of crape murder. Notice that these are older crapes that had been heavily pruned (or pollarded) for many years, resulting in the knobby scarred knuckles at the ends of the lopped trunks. In previous years, this strategy resulted in ugly-enough porcupine like growth in the spring. After this last harsh winter, the tree looks to have been killed to the ground. Sadly, it wasn't quite put out of its misery and now must endure the indignity of coming back from the roots, with the new skinny stems looking terribly incongruous among the dead stems from years past. What to do here? As with many murdered crapes, I'd say either shovel prune or cut down to the ground to start over with renewal pruning.

In a best case scenario, even when a tree is not damaged or killed through annual pollarding, such pruning will probably stimulate rampant suckering so that you end up with a crape that behaves like a wild bush:

Best case crape murder scenario - pollard crape myrtle with numerous suckers behaving like a shrub

Now I'm not saying that every single crape myrtle will die in a hard winter if it's pruned back severely year after year. It might depend on how many years it's gotten the chop or on whether it's in a sheltered location or how much pampering it gets during the growing season. There are lots of variables. But chopping crapes back year after year is not only a crime against aesthetics, it's also placing the plants at a disadvantage for coping with whatever Mother Nature throws at them.

Incidentally, if you'd like a crape myrtle that stays shrub-sized, there are plenty of dwarf crapes that have been bred for compactness. You'll save the time, hassle, waste and/or cost of annual pruning and your petite crapes will look healthier and more natural year-round.

This landscaping bed isn't exactly my style, but despite the excess mulch and the dearth of plants, it's still miles better than the murdered crapes. Presumably these are miniature crapes that have been chosen so that they will not require annual butchering, er, pruning.

Incidentally, even some of the "semi-dwarf" crapes could get bigger than you think. Southern Living lists Acoma as a crape that tops out around 10-feet tall, but I've seen some mature Acomas that were probably at least twice that height.

The Marvelous Mock Orange

Natchez Mock Orange in full bloom, May 15, 2014

Late last autumn, I went shopping at a local plant nursery and found a heavily discounted 1-gallon Natchez Mock Orange (Philadelphus x virginalis "Natchez") on sale.

I bought. I planted it on the Northwest side of the house where it replaced a crape myrtle that I'd chopped down. (It had been growing waaaaaaaay too close to the house. Now it's trying to grow back. I foresee lots more chopping in the future.)

This is only the Mock Orange's first spring here, but I've been really impressed with the way it covered itself with flowers.

Unlike some other Mock Oranges, Natchez does not have especially fragrant flowers, but it is considered a "prolific" bloomer. Definitely fit the bill this year.

Close up on Natchez Mock Orange flowers, May 15, 2014

My understanding is that Mock Oranges are often both tough and fast-growing. So far, it seems plenty tough. I haven't seen much (any) growth yet, but I guess they typically bloom on old growth, so now that the bloom is done, perhaps the growth spurt will come later this summer or in the autumn?

Incidentally, my Natchez bloomed  for almost a month this year and the flowers are self-cleaning. I particularly liked visiting the Mock Orange in the evening when the white flowers are outstanding in the gloaming.

A New Taste: Serviceberry

Amelanchier x grandiflora "Autumn Brilliance"
Photo taken at Atlanta Botanical Garden, May 2014

One of the things you start discovering when you dive into gardening and horticulture is just how few of the world's edible plants (i.e. plants people can eat) have been widely commercialized.

As a result, even if you've reached the ripe old age of 30-something (as I have), you can still have a brand new taste sensation.

In my case, it happened last month when I was visiting the Atlanta Botanical Garden and came across the marvelous serviceberry tree (Amelanchier x grandiflora "Autumn Brilliance") in the edible part of that garden.

Perhaps to the annoyance of the birds who were hopping from branch to branch gorging themselves on the fruit, my wife and I each snuck a few berries. They were very tasty!

Close up on Serviceberries
Photo taken at Atlanta Botanical Garden, May 2014

I've been talking to some horticultural experts recently at botanic gardens around the country and several have recommended the serviceberry for both its aesthetic and edible qualities.

If you're looking to add some home-grown fruit to your garden with a versatile small tree that reportedly often has very nice fall foliage, Serviceberry could be just the ticket.

Look closely.
Can you spy the robin amid the Serviceberry foliage?
Serviceberries can feed the birds, while perhaps giving you some berries for your own table.
Photo taken at Atlanta Botanical Garden, May 2014

Happy as a Bee in Hypericum

We always hear about bees being happy in clover, but I think they seem down right ecstatic gathering nectar or pollen from the many blooms of Hypericum frondosum "Sunburst".

About 18 months after I added it to the garden, Hypericum has done really well for me here in Tennessee so far. It's planted on a steep hillside and has endured the cold, hear, drought and rains beautifully. Not too surprising, as it is (according to Missouri Botanical Garden) native to rocky hills and barrens from Kentucky to Texas.

Do you grow any of the Hypericums? If so, what has been your experience with them?

Atlanta Trip Report #4 -- Smith-Gilbert Gardens in Kennesaw, Georgia

Rosa floribunda "Scentimental"

The Smith-Gilbert Gardens in Kennesaw have a bonsai exhibit, a Camellia Garden and a 19th Century historic home.

But my favorite parts of this garden were the woodland trails (one of which leads to a shady nook by a cooling waterfall), the conifer collection and the delightful rose garden.

Here are some of the nicest roses that caught my eye -- or stimulated my olfactory system:

Hybrid Tea Rose "Heirloom"
The color is a bit garish and the flowers may be packed too tightly together, but it sure did smell good.

Abraham Darby, a David Austin English Rose
To be honest, the blooms are a bit ... overwrought for my tastes.
Beautifully fragrant, though.
Dave's Garden reviewers report epic struggles and heartbreak with this one.
The review and comments are priceless at The Gardener of Good and Evil.

IMHO, the jewelry store can't hold a candle to this "Tiffany" Hybrid Tea Rose.
(My wife might disagree.)

"Pat Austin" English Rose

Heading into the woodland garden, we came across this young Bigleaf Magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla)

According to the Missouri Botanical Garden, Bigleaf Magnolia has the largest simple leaves (up to 30 inches long) of any tree indigenous to North America.

An unknown (but spectacular) purple rhododendron in full bloom on a shady woodland trail

Yep, it's another Cephalotaxus (Plum Yew)! What can I say? I'm smitten by the genre. This is Cephalotaxus harringtonia, the same species I have at home, but I've never heard of this cultivar - McCorkle.  I did find it online at one (wholesale?) nursery in Michigan called Spring Meadows. According to the listing there, McCorkle will grow about 5 feet high by 6 feet wide.

Close up on the delightful new growth in the foliage of Cephalotaxus harringtonia "McCorkle"

I was wowed by this bright, dense foliage of Chamaecyparis pisifera (a.k.a. Japanese Falsecypress or Sawara Cypress). The cultivar here was Filifera Aurea that the Missouri Botanical Garden says can grow slowly to 15-20 feet tall over many years

I decided to stand next to the tree to give you a better sense of its size. I'm approximately six-feet tall, so I'm guessing this tree was about 10-feet tall by 8-feet wide? It looks like it would be great for a privacy hedge, although the slow-growing quality means you'd need to buy a substantial tree to start or have a lot of time and patience.

This is the last of my four Atlanta trip reviews. (You can find links to the other reviews in the archive section of the sidebar.) I hope you enjoyed the journey! As always, I welcome your comments, questions and suggestions.