Entering into another hot, dry summer, it’s probably a good idea to plan a trip to the Botanical Garden to escape the heat, but also to see what last year’s heat can mean for flowers this summer.
Perhaps surprising to some, a number of our summer-flowering rhododendrons are particularly floriferous this year. It may be surprising that there are summer-flowering rhododendrons at all! In particular, the tree-sized Rhododendron auriculatum (eared rhododendron) with its lily-scented blooms will be spectacular. There are several scattered around the David C. Lam Asian Garden, but most are around the south side of Wharton Glade and near Upper Asian Way and Ludlow Trail. A surprise of a different sort comes with the spectacular blooms of Tropaeolum speciosum (Chilean flame vine), which has made its home in the Asian Garden on Decaisne Trail at Upper Asian Way. It was an unseen guest when it first arrived some thirty years ago, tucked into the roots of a young Rosa filipes. Initially unwanted (it is definitely not an Asian plant), garden staff tried their best to dislodge it, but always unsuccessfully. In flower the plant is glorious and the resident hummingbirds are keen to show its value as a nectar provider. We now make our excuses for it being out of place, but nobody believes that we couldn’t love it wherever it is.
Hydrangeas always put on a significant show in the well-shaded Asian Garden, and there are many species, including some magnificent climbers that adorn the trunks of several of our larger conifers. Hydrangea hydrangeoides (previously Schizophragma hydrangeoides), which is mostly visible from and around Wilson Glade, and Hydrangea integrifolia (evergreen hydrangea vine) on David Trail, are only two of the Garden’s several climbing hydrangeas. But hydrangeas are also given pride of place elsewhere in the Botanical Garden. For example, there are plantings of Hydrangea quercifolia (oakleaf hydrangea) and the North American climbing hydrangea, Hydrangea barbara (formerly Decumaria barbara) in the Carolinian Forest Garden. In the Contemporary Garden there are sizeable plants of the remarkably large-flowered lacecap, Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Mariesii Perfecta’ (also known as ‘Blue Wave’) near the Physic Garden hedge and the exquisitely bright, robin’s egg blue pompoms of an unnamed cultivar of Hydrangea macrophylla (likely ‘Générale Vicomtesse de Vibraye’) near the west end of the Arbor.
Many flowers from around the temperate world are at their peak in the E. H. Lohbrunner Alpine Garden in July. Visitors who don’t mind the sunshine can’t help but notice our collection of Kniphofia (torch lilies), Phygelius (Cape fuchsia) and Crocosmia (montbretias) in the African section. In habitat, pollination of these flowers is carried out by sunbirds, a family of small, often iridescently coloured birds with curved bills. Because sunbirds cannot properly hover (only New World birds—the hummingbirds—can perform this feat), they must first alight and grasp the inflorescence stalk to drink the nectar produced at the base of receptive flowers.
Note that hummingbird-pollinated flowers, such as penstemons and Epilobium canum (zauschneria or California fuchsia)—check out the North American section for these—present their flowers more horizontally and on stems that are often supple and incapable of supporting a bird’s weight. Working one’s way up the slope to the highest trail in the South American section, Escallonia ‘Compakta’, Fuchsia magellanica (hardy fuchsia) (also well represented in the Entrance plaza) and the spectacular lipstick-red flowers of Lobelia tupa (devil’s tobacco) are also magnets for hummingbirds. The narrow arm of South America continues around to the northwest, where you’ll see the long blooming, purple-flowered Verbena rigida (slender vervain), and further still, the look-alike, but softer, bluer blooms of Glandularia corymbosa (mock verbena) lapping over the path edge. Don’t miss the show this July.
Written by:
Douglas Justice
Associate Director, Horticulture and Collections
UBC Botanical Garden
