Plant of the Week: Carolina Silverbell (Halesia tetraptera)

Perhaps one of the most loved small flowering trees planted throughout Kentucky is the flowering dogwood (Cornus florida).  It is a quintessential sign of spring as those beautiful white trees stick out against the background of a forest returning to green of summer.  While the flowering dogwood is an excellent landscape plant, perhaps as an alternative you might want something a little different.to provide that outstanding white color, the Carolina Silverbell.  There is nothing more delicate and showy than a Carolina silverbell in full flower. This tree has lots of interest because in the spring it has clusters of 1/2 to 1" long bells that hang below the branches, in the summer it has interested "Chinese latern" like seed pods, and in the fall it usually turns a nice yellow color. In the wild it usually occurs as a multistemmed understory species that doesn't exceed 35' tall but it can be found as a single stemmed tree growing to heights of 80 to 100'.  It flowers best with full sun to partial shade but it can tolerate quite a bit of shade and is an excellent specimen plant or focal point in the woodland garden.  It likes somewhat acidicm well-drained soils high in organic matter and doesn't care much for clay.It has dull, finely toothed, dark yellowish-green, oblong leaves ranging from 2-5" long.  Great companion plants and a special area of a woodland garden would be to have a silverbell surrounded by our native azaleas which would be very showy. It gets its name tetraptera which means 4- winged from the 4 winged fruits it produces.  There are a fair number of cultivars available in the trade and some have more pinkish flowers. This is a fairly slow growing species.