Here’s what’s blooming in town this week to make your walks more enjoyable Page 14 THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – FriDAy, MAy 9, 2025 Saugus Gardens in the Spring By Laura Eisener D espite the cloudy and often rainy weather we had most of this week, many flowers are exploding with color now to brighten our days. The cooler temperatures help to prolong the bloom. The early magnolias and cherries, which bloom before their leaves emerge, have lost most of their blossoms, but there is one late blooming cherry that flowers when its foliage is almost full size. That is the ‘Kwanzan’ cherry (Prunus serrulata ‘Kwanzan’), a very popular multi-petalled pink variety, which is blooming in every neighborhood now. At lunch last Sunday, I looked out a window and saw a pink blizzard as wind gusts blew petals off an adjacent cherry beside the building. Petals swirled everyA short-cupped daffodil, often called a jonquil, blooms in a Lynnhurst garden. (Photo courtesy of Laura Eisener) where and created petal puddles at the edges of the flower bed, similar to the picture above of a ‘Kwanzan’ cherry on Route 1. In addition to the profuse pink petals, the emerging leaves have an intriguing bronze color, although they will be green a few weeks from now. In fall they become bright yellow and orange. We also have many pink and white crabapple varieties in bloom all over town. People often ask how to tell the ‘Kwanzan’ cherries from the similarly pink varieties of crabapple. They are both in the rose family so there are certainly quite a few similarities, but the ‘Kwanzan’ cherries have many petals in the same blossom. Among the most loved flowThis wallflower has an unusual combination of apricot and eggplant flower colors. (Photo courtesy of Laura Eisener) ers of spring is the fragrant common lilac (Syringa vulgaris). Usually it is a light purple, but there are other colors, usually developed in the 19th century by French propagators who crossed them with other lilac species while maintaining the usual common lilac height, form and fragrance. Some of these may have blossoms with multiple petals. Dark purple, light purple and pinkish flower colors are also among these plants – often known as French hybrid lilacs. One of the darkest purples available is ‘Old Glory’ (Syringa vulgaris ‘Old Glory’). In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was considered good luck to plant lilacs at the corners of new homes, and it is still possible to find very old lilacs planted near old homes. Most lilacs have four petals per flower. Another popular, old-fashioned plant is the showy bleeding heart (now Lamprocapnos spectabilis, but often still labeled Dicentra spectabilis) – sometimes called Asian bleeding heart. It is very dramatic in the spring garden, with its arching stems of heart shaped blossoms in May and June, although when temperatures warm up in July the entire plant becomes dormant. First time growers often assume it It’s a symphony in pink as this ‘Kwanzan’ cherry blooms near a deep pink door on Route 1 in North Saugus. (Photo courtesy of Laura Eisener) is dead, but it will almost certainly return for many years to come. It was extremely popular in Victorian times and appears on many old-fashioned valentines. Other bleeding heart varieties – including our native Eastern bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia), also called fringed bleeding heart – have much smaller flowers but continue blooming beyond spring through the summer, which is worth considering when deciding which to plant. The wallflower (Erysimum A dark purple variety of common lilac is flowering in Lynnhurst. (Photo courtesy of Laura Eisener) A white variety of showy bleeding heart blooms in the garden at St. John’s Church on Prospect Street. (Photo courtesy of Laura Eisener) spp.) is another flower with four petals, although unrelated to lilacs. This member of the cabbage family (Brassicaceae) is a spring to early summer blooming perennial that thrives in shallow soil, such as rock gardens, and even in crevices between stones in a wall. Crumbled mortar is just fine for the roots of this plant, and it joins rock phlox (Phlox subulata), basket of gold (Aurinia saxatilis) and rock cress (Arabis caucasica) as a good choice for exposed ledges and boulders. Flowers colors vary widely, as there are several species in this genus. One of several new varieties, ‘Erysistible Bronze Rose’ has flowers that appear pale orange when they open up but change to purple as they go by; it is a good choice because of its long bloom and varied flower shades in the same plant, and it is not generally viewed as a food by rabbits. Daffodils and tulips are still going strong. Many of the later blooming daffodils (Narcissus spp.) are short-cupped ones often referred to as jonquils. All jonquils are daffodils, but only a group of hybrids with short cups (also known as coronas), often stronger fragrance, and a tolerance for warmer winter temperatures are properly referred to as jonquils. Like other daffodils, the corona can be the same or different colors than the perianth or corolla. Editor’s Note: Laura Eisener is a landscape design consultant who helps homeowners with landscape design, plant selection and placement of trees and shrubs, as well as perennials. She is a member of the Saugus Garden Club and offered to write a series of articles about “what’s blooming in town” shortly after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was inspired after seeing so many people taking up walking.
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