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A lovely small tree from central China. I have wanted one in the garden for a number of years (despite not really having anywhere to put it)
so when this one turned up in an end-of-season sale at a local nursery there was no question that I would be taking it home! I have planted it at the top of the garden. I had to cut down some field maples to fit it in so - down they came. I wish that I could say I have it in a delicious corner of the garden where I could linger all day with a deck chair and a flask of coffee watching the sunlight flutter along its eyelash leaves. Unfortunately it's planted in the path of the cold winds and I have to adore it fleetingly as I scurry past. Trees and Shrubs online says: "Tilia henryana is instantly recognisable by virtue of the leaf margin, which is almost entire except for long bristles tipping each vein. These are strikingly pale and are further accentuated by sparse light-trapping starry hairs, so that they resemble eyelashes coated in white mascara; the effect is glamorous, almost camp. The silvery crimson of the unfolding leaves, which are briefly but densely downy, is also among the showiest features within the genus. The flowers, in usually large, dense heads, are almost the last to open of any lime, at least in European cultivation, and are very welcome in September as a source of fragrance in the garden and fresh tisane after dinner. Tilia henryana was described in 1890 by the Polish botanist Ignaz von Szyszyłowicz, from a herbarium specimen collected by Augustine Henry in Hubei a few years earlier, and named in Henry’s honour. T. henryana has acquired a reputation for requiring milder, more sheltered gardens: this may not be entirely justified. It has proved hardy through cold winters in the eastern United States and in Central Europe, and the warm summers of more continental areas are probably beneficial." |
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| 7th July 2022 | ||
