Hello October! The weather here has turned much cooler with gray skies and scattered sprinkles. The perfect backdrop for the emerging autumnal show--which is just starting in my front yard. It's all so exciting!
Maybe I have already shared about our redbud tree (Cercis Canadensis), also known as 'Forest Pansy' in past blog posts, but it really bears mentioning again (and again!), because it's such a gorgeous thing of beauty.
If you are ever looking for a fast-growing landscape tree for zones 5-9, this is it (in my opinion), not only because of its lovely shape and manageable size, but mostly because of the dramatic colors it produces.
During spring and summer the leaves are dark purple, which creates a nice contrast amongst the green foliage that surrounds it, making it a stand out feature in our front yard. In the fall it puts on quite a show as the pretty heart-shaped leaves come alive with splashes of green, orange, deep pink, yellow, gold and red.
Not only is this tree beautiful, it's hardy. Because, unlike both my beloved Glory Bowers ("peanut butter" trees) that just up and died after the severe frost events three years ago (I know--so sad), this tree not only survived that frost--but much worse early on, which makes me love and appreciate it even more.
Shortly after planting it, some eight or nine years ago, when it was putting down roots and spreading it's lovely vertical branches, a wild west-wind blew in and literally tore it from limb to limb, splitting it right down the middle!
It looked pretty pathetic with its one side stripped off, its perfect symmetrical shape ruined. Being that it was to be the feature and focus of the front yard landscape, we were in a bit of a quandary over what to do about it; replace or repair? After staring at it for a few days, we decided to take the wait and see approach, did what we could to support the remaining branches and gave it another year to see what it was going to do before making a final decision about it.
To our amazement and delight, it recovered rather quickly and within a few years had grown into a fine looking tree.
Today I'm looking at this tree, admiring its astounding colors, its cute heart-shaped leaves and its hardy constitution, so happy that we made the right decision to give it another chance.
