I’ll shoutout Golden Spice pear. Not only does it give delicious fruit, it has grown like a weed, has beautiful dark green leaves, pretty white flowers and awesome fall color.

95% American hybrid chestnut is blooming profusely -- maybe it'll make a couple chestnuts.

Quercus bicolor.

5 seasons in the ground from an acorn, now 10ft. tall and spreading wide. Instant legacy tree!

I was hoping for pictures!

Lane, Golden Spice pear, which was developed at the U of Minnesota, has been on my radar for some time. I held off because I didn’t think it would be good for fresh eating, but you find them tasty. Do you have another pear as a pollinator?

I’ll give a shoutout to the lowly Spiraea, which is making this grouping pop. I’m not sure which one it is, but they’re 10+ years and have never looked better.

Just got back from coaching little league. Picture sucks, maybe I’ll update it tomorrow. The tree on the left is the Golden Spice and the right is Ure. Planted at the same time so you can see how much better the Golden has done. The Ure has some chlorosis, but the golden does not. I do not know about root stock, sorry. The Ure flowers earlier, so it’s not ideal. I’m thinking I need to get a callery pear, as well, to help both make more fruit.

Yeah, I think golden spice is super tasty. I, too, heard they weren’t that good, but they are to me. The fruit really do have a cinnamon or allspice or cloves aftertaste. Better than a grocery store pear, just a lot smaller. Ure is dang good, too, but I’ve only gotten to eat like three of them.

Of note, there is a golden spice planted at the hospital here in Laramie ( has a fancy plaque and everything) and the hospital is on a hill and very exposed. Exposed here means ungodly windy in terms of intensity, as well as, duration. It has a severe lean , but is otherwise pristine. Awesome, tough, hardy trees.

@maackia - Hi - Your Spiraea is lovely – I have a few that look very similar – they are 'Double Play Gold' – and lots of rain and intense heat here (SE PA) has taken a toll.

@maackia - that's a very nice monster! I have 'Summer Wine' - photo yesterday.

Out of curiosity, I looked up images of chestnut flowers, and looks like my chestnut has nothing except oodles of male flowers, but no females. :(

Mine does not have the fuzzy female flowers, only the long, stringy ones as shown in this stock pic.

beng, chestnuts are monoecious, so it should have both male and female flowers - just a guess, but perhaps your chestnut is still too small to produce female flowers?

A shoutout to Korean Mountainash - a medium sized tree with good hardiness, symmetrical habit, clean foliage, and decent fall color. This one I grew from seed

Magnolia obovata (Japanese big leaf magnolia, aka Japanese white-barked magnolia) is a lesser-known magnolia with good hardiness that provides a tropical look. This species ranges farther north than any other magnolia. This one is a seedling a good friend shared with me

A photo of the flower from the Dawes Arboretum

arbor -- that's my guess. It just started putting out a few male flowers in 2023 (now all over). I notice the neighbor's Chinese chestnut has female flowers only on the upper half of it, while male flowers all over.

Edit: Hmm -- interesting. Looking at my stock pic above, perhaps the female flowers are the bulbous growths (with pistols) along the stem, and the stringy flowers are just male flowers that haven't opened yet into fuzzy strands? I dunno, this is the first direct experience of mine growing one. Pic taken 2 yrs ago w/the some strands visible down low.

Vercurve

Dave, did you get that M. obovata planted? :)

Here’s a shoutout to Maackia amurensis ’Summertime’. Trees flowering at the end of July are rare in these parts, so this one is near and dear.

I don't have a lot, but this is what stands out to me this seasom.

The little Aesculus glabra, that I planted from a Conker, year before last, grew about a foot this season.

I really like the look of the leaves.

Hydrangea macrophylla 'Bloom Struck' got moved to the back yard this spring.

I thought it would take a season to recover but it's putting on a show lately.

My Tsuga canadensis, grew another 16" making it about the same height (5') as the one I yanked out of the middle of the yard a couple years ago. It will be another season or two though, before it will have the same girth as that one did.

Picea Meyeri, planted Fall of 2021, finally put on a foot of growth this season.

And just for kicks, the Canadian Yew plant, out between the garden shed and the lilac hedge, that I almost killed at least a couple times, had its first berry this season.

It's down in there somewhere. :-)

Hard to capture the size, but my now 20 foot diameter bottle brush buckeye looked good this year.

tj

maackia, I haven't planted the M. obovata, but it has grown quickly since my last post a month ago (see photo). There's no room left in my own yard, so I may donate it to one of the public gardens in the area. Didn't you have a M.. tripetala in your yard?

BillMN, based on the foliage I'm wondering if your Aesculus glabra might actually be a hybrid?

tj, here's an impressive bottle brush buckeye at the Morton Arboretum (photo 7/9/21)

'BillMN, based on the foliage I'm wondering if your Aesculus glabra might actually be a hybrid?'

Thanks, dave!

That wouldn't surprise me being it was seed from a cemetery tree in a town where other species exist.

Bill, your Aesculus has unusually rugose (textured) leaves that I don't recall seeing on buckeyes (tho I'm not a buckeye/horsechestnut expert).

Thanks, beng!

It's so hard to tell with such a young plant.

They've had a sunshade most of the season, so they're well developed.

Not to mention I use my special formula of plant nutrients on all my newer seedlings. ;-)

Hybrid? Hippocastanum has rugose leaves similar to mine, but I looked up images of buckeye too and those had similar ribbing but maybe not quite as pronounced as mine.

Another possibility is seed diversity and I've just come up with a new selection? haha. ;-)

Leaves look really cool on that buckeye. Very corrugated

I want me some Bottle Brush Buckeye! I never see it offered at area nurseries, but it’s another plant that needs to be tried up nort. I wonder how it would do in mostly shade??

Dave, it looks like the magnolia has double in size. I do have a tripetala that is at the woodland edge next to a Snake Bark maple. It has grown slowly, but is starting to come on and produced fruit this year. It seems to handle our winters okay, but is a favored by bucks as a scratching post.

Bill, you’ve prooved me wrong with your H. macrophylla. Looks great.

My bbb is in full shade under a mature black walnut.

tj

As tsuga mentioned his, my bottlebrush over the yrs has become covered w/practically full shade from the Chinese elm and other trees. Seems perfectly healthy, tho w/all that seclusion, seems like pollinators are not finding the flowers much.

And maackia, my umbrella magnolia was also a target for deer rubbing early on, but lately haven't bothered it (they're still around as other things get rubbed).

Good to know. I've got spot where BBB just might work. I'll keep you posted. :)

Hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana): Species from seed (2019).

Staying narrow between the houses but then I have another that's in all day sun that looks similar.

Bill, this is a Japanese horsechestnut......

Thanks, beng!

Nice to know mine has a feature of a more exotic plant. 8^)

Aesculus turbinata has a somewhat pear-shaped, smooth husked fruit and a 6a minimum hardiness zone so no chance that one had anything to do with the parentage of mine. ;-)

It could be mine is from a certain cultivar of Ohio buckeye. It would be a real trick if I could find out who planted that one and what variety it was.

I might be transplanting my OBE next spring, if my A. pseudosieboldianum again shows signs of winter dieback. That will balance out the front yard better (if it's missing the maple).

Read about the callery pear before you get one. They are invasive and stink from what I have read.

D M - for sure. If I lived in a location where ANY tree were capable of becoming invasive, I would not plant a callery pear. It is simply too dry here for any tree to grow. period. all require constant irrigation to live. There is not a naturally occurring tree within miles of where I live, and the ones that live within miles are among the most drought tolerant anywhere, which, from what I understand, callery pear is not.

Ben...where did you get the variegated one? Forestfarm? I have a A. turbinata but it is agonizingly slow growing, my slowest growing tree so far...other than dwarf Japanese maples.

David -- ha, should've said that was a stock pic..... I do have bottlebrush buckeye, but it's not variegated.