Fringe Tree
Spring before last I planted a tree for some neighbors in the corner of their backyard. An existing tree in the location had died. (Or so we thought - the tree was, as it turned out, only mostly dead). I suggested to the homeowner that we plant a small native tree that I liked called a fringe tree. I sent along some pictures and an article or two. They looked it up and were agreeable. The day I came to plant the fringe tree I noticed that one limb of the "dead" tree was still alive, and that it was blooming. Much to my surprise it too was a fringe tree! The homeowner and I had one of those do-do-do-do moments...I mean, what are the chances? It seemed that that corner was just meant to have a fringe tree.
I wrote the client to ask how it was doing. He sent along the picture below. The young tree is barely six feet tall but look at the blooms!
I wrote the client to ask how it was doing. He sent along the picture below. The young tree is barely six feet tall but look at the blooms!
Obviously these are not ordinary blooms! They hang down in big fluff balls of snow from the stems. The scientific name for our native fringe tree is Chionanthus virginicus. Chionanthus, the genus, translates roughly as "snow flower." It's not too hard to see where the name came from. Another common name is old man's beard or Grancy gray beard.
This past spring I was at the nursery with another customer to buy some perennials. They just happened to have a blooming fringe tree in stock. My customer friend took a big deep smell and exclaimed that it smelled like chocolate. I had never really stuck my nose into the flower tufts so I did the same. To my surprise it did indeed smell like chocolate. We took it home and found a perfect place for it.
Fringe trees become beautiful, somewhat gnarly trunked small trees 15-20 feet high, often as wide as tall. Their bark is a beautiful furrowed gray-brown, and the leaves turn a delightful yellow in the fall.
Our fringe tree is a true native, being found across the Carolinas in various habitats and soil types and sun conditions. I have seen fringe trees in the wild on several occasions, usually as an under story tree or on the edges of wooded areas.
What I find most interesting about fringe trees is that most people have never seen them, yet when they do they find the tree fascinating, even exotic. And this is what I find most interesting about gardening with native plants. So inundated have we been for so long (almost 300 years!) by so many mostly oriental plants, plants which are now the mainstays of the southern garden, that it is the native species that have become the rare, interesting, and exotic ones - the ones we are inclined to treat as lost treasures!
This past spring I was at the nursery with another customer to buy some perennials. They just happened to have a blooming fringe tree in stock. My customer friend took a big deep smell and exclaimed that it smelled like chocolate. I had never really stuck my nose into the flower tufts so I did the same. To my surprise it did indeed smell like chocolate. We took it home and found a perfect place for it.
Fringe trees become beautiful, somewhat gnarly trunked small trees 15-20 feet high, often as wide as tall. Their bark is a beautiful furrowed gray-brown, and the leaves turn a delightful yellow in the fall.
Our fringe tree is a true native, being found across the Carolinas in various habitats and soil types and sun conditions. I have seen fringe trees in the wild on several occasions, usually as an under story tree or on the edges of wooded areas.
What I find most interesting about fringe trees is that most people have never seen them, yet when they do they find the tree fascinating, even exotic. And this is what I find most interesting about gardening with native plants. So inundated have we been for so long (almost 300 years!) by so many mostly oriental plants, plants which are now the mainstays of the southern garden, that it is the native species that have become the rare, interesting, and exotic ones - the ones we are inclined to treat as lost treasures!
