This time of year the flowers in our yard are starting to appear. They come in waves as my wife is an expert at having something blooming throughout the summer & whole year. Right now the star of our yard is the Japanese snowbell (Styrax japonicus).
It is impressive from a distance but to really appreciate it, you need to get under it and look up at the flowers.
My wife & I bought one when we landscaped our first home together & fell in love with the tree. In August, it drops its seeds and they often just start growing under the tree. We took a few and put them in pots for friends and ended up taking two with us when we moved to our current home. Over the past 15 years they have grown to almost 30 feet & right now in full bloom, making the bees very happy. I even caught a hummingbird yesterday doing a quick nectar check which was the first time I have seen this.
You can’t really tell from a distance but if you get up eye level to the flowers you can see why they call them snowbells.
The only downside of these trees is they do take up a good chunk of space, they can self seed, and the flower dump can be a bit of a mess (though a pretty fragrant one!).
They are hardy down to 5 °F (though ours has survived less than that) and grow well in full sun or partial sun.
That’s so nice to see, even in pictures. Our place has been under heat and drought and things are so brown it’s sad. I pray for rain.
We are having what we call here as June-uary. It has been cold and rainy one day and then 70s and sunny the next. Sometimes both in one day. Our real summer doesn’t start until after July 4th.
You should take some of ours. We were getting rained on every other day till the heatwave.
I’m thinking of planting one of these, which also has masses of white flowers. They’re natives of the deep south, but they seem to do well in a lot of the US, with one in NH being a prime specimen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halesia_carolina
Haven’t seen those but yeah, same family and very similar. Good luck. Post pics if you do plant one.
They should be hardy to zone 5, I bet it will do great.
Reminds me of the cherry blossoms that sprout from the cherry trees on my parents backyard in May.
These are beautiful pictures! It makes me think of what we could have landscaped with instead of fucking invasive callery pears but nope.
I like the glass ornaments. Are they Chihuly? @Loveshaq.
@elliecoo we can’t afford Chihulys! We have a bunch of glass artists that frequent farmers markets & art shows locally. Most are from my wife’s favorite artist that will do custom colors for her & her friend.
https://www.jessekellyglass.com
Whoa! Her work is wonderful.
Jesse is a he but yes, he does cool stuff.
The wish list is in progress.