Comments on: White Fringetree http://sites.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/06/12/white-fringetree/ Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:10:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Jane http://sites.middlebury.edu/middland/2009/06/12/white-fringetree/comment-page-1/#comment-51 Jane Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:23:29 +0000 http://sites.middlebury.edu/middland/?p=39#comment-51 My favorite shrub! My mother had a very large, very old one in her garden in a suburb outside Boston. It was mature when the family bought the house 50 years ago. Eventually, its thick old trunk died, but by that time it was surrounded by suckers that had grown into nice full shrubs.

I was about to have the old dead trunk taken out for the sake of the health of the rest of the plant, but when I discovered a pair of chickadees doggedly digging out a nesthole beakful by beakful, I didn’t have the heart.

The very first shrub I put in at my new house here was a Chionanthus. It seems to be little known and little used by landscapers generally, which is a real shame.

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