Meet the Magnolias

I can't help myself; it is spring (possibly my last one for awhile in this area) and the plants are amazing right now! For starters, I want to highlight two types of deciduous magnolia trees that are showiest right now.
The Magnolia family (Magnoliaceae) is a dicot with about 12 genera and over 200 species of evergreen or deciduous trees or shrubs, mostly in temperate regions. The leaves are alternate, simple, usually entire, pinnately veined (meaning the veins are constructed like a feather, with a central axis, or rachis and subveins off of that). One of the key characteristics of this family is its encircling stipular scars. Branches have a distinct look because of thelarge scar left behind after a bud (either flower bud or leaf bud) drops off. The buds on Magnolias are especially showy and have a silky bud sheath that makes identifying the tree in the winter quite easy.
The pink flowering deciduous Magnolia in bloom right now is called Magnolia x soulangiana, Saucer Magnolia, and usually stays a smallish ornamental tree about 20-30' tall. The tree flowers before it leafs out and blooms are 5-10" in diameter! This tree definitely steals the show during its magnificient, though short, blooming time. Sometimes a late cold snap kills all the blooms just before they open. March can be sort of a tempermental month, weather-wise, but this year, they flowered nicely before any unexpected resurgence of winter.
The Star Magnolia, Magnolia stellata also blooms in early spring with big floppy-earred white blooms. These trees tend to grow slightly smaller (15-20') and have a denser branching habit, with flowers and leaves more compactly spaced. Star magnolia flowers have the added benefit of a nice fragrance with many more petals (12-18) and are usually only 3-4" in diameter. I like this tree a little better because white blends into an overall landscape a little better than pepto bismol pink, and I like the tighter form with a slighter finer texture.
The magnolias, a most amiable group, the harbingers of spring. So, happy Spring, and also a shout-out to Dallin for a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Designing with Nature

I found it a little hard to leave such an undefiled representation of the miracle and majesty of God's creation and return to something much less than that. On the drive back I saw eroded banks, backhoes tearing out trees, a townhouse construction project, weedy wastelands, privet filled forests, etc. What a daunting, and yet ultimately rewarding challenge faces the landscape architect to take models from pure nature and abstract that pattern to the built environment.
Ian McHarg in his book Designing with Nature encourages all who would pursue that high road:
"Let us...give expression to the potential harmony of man-nature. The world is abundant, we require only a deference born of understanding to fulfill man's promise. Man is that uniquely concious creature who can perceive and express. He must become the steward of the biosphere. To do this he must design with nature."

In Awesome Wonder

I have a new favorite kind of landscape: the granite outcrop. Fascination, awe, excitement, surprise, the thrill of discovery, I was feeling it all investigating the granite rock outcrop landscape just five miles southeast of Athens that is part of the Rock and Shoals Outcrop Natural Area. Granite outcrops are a unique environment (the most notable example in Georgia being Stone Mountain which rises 825 feet about the surrounding topography).
The granite outcrop outside Athens is somewhat bowl shaped and because water can collect in and around the rock the herbaceous plant communities are extradinarily diverse and truly marvelous!

The plants that have adapted to this environment are growing in between 0-15" of soil. I was struck by the patterns and forms and textures. I began to see a "minaturization" of the earth's biomes in these little landscapes.
A cluster of moss and lichen aside a little pool of water looked like the birds eye view of a mountain lake and a tree canopy from 15,000 feet. Everywhere I looked was a new little "fairy garden"--a microcosm of nature in a tiny 6" by 6" space. These photos hardly do the landscape justice.