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Tree in Limbo by Marie Wilson a popular horticultural delight to the land of limbo. The number of really good specimens of this wonderful pink candle tree in any Fair field County town could be counted on your pair of hands, and there’d be fingers left over. However, if you were driving down Hillspoint Road in West port, and if you could see up and over the towering density of the hemlock hedge into the garden of the Reginald Moonans, then you would see the most perfect pair indeed of the pink horse-chestnut tree. This strange spring has proved a good blooming one for horse chestnuts, both the better known white flowering and the astonishing pink. The “can delabra” blossoms measure close to a foot, full with individual flowers resembling snapdragons. The foliage, too, is equally showy, not unlike that of the castor bean or some sturdy tropical shrub. And in winter, as the leaf buds sleep beneath a sticky, shiny “varnish,” these trees have an ornamental ap peal. At the Moonans’ place the pink blooming trees (taller than 30 feet) are featured on the front lawn, and appear even more spectacular because along side sprawls an eight-foot high and 20 feet broad wistaria tree! Far down the lawn there’s a hedge of white lilacs and white hybrid rhododendrons. Out in Ohio they call it the Buckeye, and the popular va riety has yellow flowers. Nos talgia for a boyhood Buckeye— and a pink bloomer, as that — may be responsible for some of the horse-chestnuts planted here, like the one the late George Waldo had up on Green field Hill. I know that nurserymen will tell you that the horse-chestnut is a “dirty tree” because it drops its leaves early in the autumn, sometimes even in August. They turn a dry disappointing brown and merely fall all over the place — no fall color at all. But what can you expect — su perman? I know, too, that in dry sea sons the horse-chestnuts have a rough time of it — that’s when they lose their leaves at the end of summer. And they can get a fungus blight. But you can water, and you can feed— that’s important with these pink rees! — and you even can get them sprayed, if necessary, wretched spell, about ten years ago, and a former owner not only kept them alive but im proved them with feeding and watering. So now, get going at arrsery and one of these days you can be saying, “But have you seen my pink horse-chest nut tree!” Another beautiful pink flow ering plant this week is the small-leafed rhododendron, the Carolina variety. Where the heavy foliage of the large flower hybrids or of the Rose bay rhododendron is too coarse for a low, rambling type of house, the Carolinas will give you evergreen and color with out overpowering. They are rather tricky, however, almost seem to prefer to be left alone, so long as they get water, es pecially during a dry fall. Plants like children are often killed by kindness.
Newspaper Details
Fairfield County Fair
Fairfield, Connecticut, US
Thu, May 30, 1957
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Emily S.
