Life in the Garden, with Wayne Mezitt

Wayne Mezitt is a regular contributor to various publications including Metrowest Daily News newspaper and Yankee Magazine, and has written articles for Newton Magazine and People, Places & Plants magazine. Wayne is the horticultural consultant for GrowingWisdom.com with Dave Epstein. We are very fortunate to have a knowledgeable and enthusiastic horticulturist who seems to have an endless source of gardening and landscape topics in his head that he wants to write about. So enjoy!

Edible Plants

Enjoying Your Garden

Fall Favorites

Seven-Son Flower

Seven-Son Flower
09/04/08

Fragrance

General

Lush Landscapes

Lush Landscapes
07/13/12



Holiday Plants

Boxwood

Boxwood
12/10/09

Native Plants

Pests

Garlic Mustard

Garlic Mustard

Garlic Mustard
05/14/09

Plant Care

Weeds!

Weeds!
08/07/08
Deadheading

Deadheading
07/10/08
Fall Mulching

Fall Mulching
11/08/12
Fearless Pruning

Fearless Pruning
11/17/11

Spring

After the Winter

After the Winter
03/08/11
New England's Earliest Color

New England's Earliest Color
04/07/11

For winter-weary New Englanders, that first color appearing in our April gardens is especially heartening. In this region, just as the witch-hazels (Hamamelis) are shedding their petals, and a week or more before Forsythia, the so-called “early rhododendrons” begin their bloom. Their predictable appearance every April is particularly welcome. 
Until the middle of the 20th century, the lavender-flowering deciduous Korean Rhododendron (Rhododendron mucronulatum) -- frequently referred to as an “azalea” because it loses all its leaves in winter -- was one of the few April-flowering woody plants available in this region. These delicate pale lavender flowers were a common sight in area gardens, among the first winter-hardy woody shrubs to bloom each spring. Then in the early 1960’s a new pink flowering form appeared on the market, Rh. ‘Cornell Pink’. The availability of a different hue began to inspire new possibilities in the early spring landscape. 
With the appearance of this new pink-flowering rhododendron, Ed Mezitt conceived a notion that even more colors for early blooming shrubs might be possible. In the late 1930’s he had developed the exceptional hybrid Rh. ‘PJM’ -- perhaps now a likely candidate for further hybridizing. So in 1964 he used the pollen from ‘Cornell Pink’ Rhododendron to hybridize with the late-April-flowering Rh. ‘PJM’, thereby creating a unique new cultivar, Rh. ‘Weston’s Pink Diamond’. Differing from its Korean parent, this new hybrid boasted multi-layered (“petaloid”) pink flowers, and it even retained some of its foliage over the winter.
More recently, hybridizers have developed additional April-flowering shrubs including many rhododendrons, offering a wider range of colors and growth forms. Of course, an important consideration for such early bloom is the threat of frost damage -- temperatures below 29° F. can discolor any flowers that have opened. Choosing a more frost resistant planting location near the house or under a tree canopy can help temper an April frost. 
Why don’t garden centers offer more early flowering shrubs for sale? It turns out that customers generally prefer to buy those plants they see in bloom. So, since many homeowners only start shopping when the weather warms up, that’s often after the early bloomers have finished flowering, and they rarely see early-April-flowering plants for sale in bloom. It is encouraging to me that many people are now becoming more sophisticated and specifically asking for special plants they see in a neighbor’s garden or a public planting. 
April flowering plants can be a true joy, particularly after a winter like we’ve just experienced. The enjoyment of looking out the kitchen window and seeing a splash of color in your own yard, just as spring is starting, is a most welcome pleasure.

 

Summer

Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas
07/02/04
Summer Planting

Summer Planting
07/01/10

Sustainability

Selecting Plants for Your

Selecting Plants for Your "Green" Garden
05/01/08
Fundamental to environmental correctness is proper use of living trees, shrubs and plants to improve the places we live and work. And of all the "green" gardening principles, proper plant selection tops the list.

Creating Your

Creating Your "Green" Garden
04/01/08
As a result of decades of attention by environmental experts and activists, "environmental sustainability" has finally reached its "tipping point" to become an important consideration for our everyday lives.

Vines

Winter