Seattle's coolest little Garden Center with perennials, shrubs, trees, containers or pottery for creating great gardens or planted containers

Flowering Trees

Flowering trees are an excellent addition to any landscape, not simply for their glorious spring and summer blooms, but also for their lovely multi-season color and shade-giving properties. Many flowering trees are quite attractive, even when not in flower. Interesting bark colors or patterns, interesting or unusual leaf or color shape in the summer or fall, and unique and colorful fruit can all add to a flowering tree's year-round beauty.

A flowering tree can also serve to anchor a landscape, providing color and height layers, acting as a beautiful backdrop to a riotous display of annual and perennial garden beds. Our flowering trees come in many different sizes from fairly small (crabapples and plums) to large and grandiose ( Oxydendron and Sourthern Magnolia). Of course, we also have dwarf versions of many larger trees. These dwarf forms are perfect for smaller, urban landscapes.

Some examples of beautiful larger trees include the Sourwood (Oxydendron) and the Kobus Magnolia trees.  These are 2"+ in trunk diameter, very nicely shaped and ready to go into the ground or a larger container.  The Sourwoods bloom with their hummingbird attracting fragrant lily-of-the-valley shaped flower clusters.

Kobus Magnolia in bloom                                             Old Sourwood blooms in fall

Flowering Trees

- Aristocrat Pear

- Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry

- Dogwoods:

       Chinensis Korean Dogwood

       Heart Throb Dogwood

       Kousa Dogwood

       Milky Way Select Dogwood

      Royal Star Magnolia (Pictured below)

      Radiant Rose Dogwood

       Satomi Dogwood

    Samaritan Dogwood

- Flowering Cherries:

       Mount Fuji Flowering Cherry

       Pink Snow Showers Cherry

       Snow Fountains Cherry   

- Japanese Snowbell

Pictured at right in full bloom. Rows and rows of tiny fragrant snowbells hanging from the fashionably drooping brnches.

- Japanese Stewartia

 The Latin name means false Camellia. The buds will open to beautiful white Camellia looking flowers. The Stewartia usually has very elegantly positioned branches giving it a wonderful shape even when it looses it foliage in the winter. A true "tree for all seasons."

- Magnolias:

       Butterflies Magnolia

       Sunburst Magnolia

       Star Magnolia

- Red Cascade Mountain Ash

- Royal Raindrop Crabapple

- Sourwood

- Thornless Cockspur Hawthorn

- Twisty Baby Locust

- Vanessa Persian Parrotia

Sourwood Tree (Oxydendrum arboreum)    

For spectacular fiery fall red colors try growing a Sourwood tree.  We have a nice selection of Sourwoods - a great tree for many different features throughout the year.  New growth in the spring is touched with bronzy red.  The fragrant flowers trail in clusters reminiscent of lily-of-the-valley flowers.  The hummingbirds seem to love them for their nectar and pollen.  In the fall the leaves change from a lovely green to a brilliant red.  The flowers become seed pods hanging gracefully in long finger-shaped groups and remaining through much of the winter.  Though it doesn't like to be underplanted with competing plants, it is quite easy to grow in our area and has little problem with disease or pests.  They also make good container plants when they're young.

Magnolia "Little Gem"  

 A great little tree for a Northwest setting, this evergreen tree is a perfect choice for many locations.  At its mature size it is usually no more than 15 feet and can spread as wide if desired.  If the spot you have chosen for it is tighter than that, just keep it trimmed to a narrower profile.  These trees accept pruning and training quite well.  Some people train them as espaliers against a house or fence or they can be kept columnar as a narrow specimen or as an accent in a larger setting. 

Beginning in spring Little Gem will begin flowering and should keep producing their huge fragrant white flowers even into winter.  The fragrance is very floral, similar to gardenia and wafts in the air when the flowers open.  The new leaves are a lustrous green with the typical brown indumentum on the reverse side.

     The small size of the leaves allows them to shed the occasional Northwest snow much better than their larger evergreen Magnolia cousins resulting in a tree nicely fit for our climate.  We currently have trees already at 8 feet above the top of their containers.            

Questions about our trees and shrubs?  Email Chuck! Looking for something in particular? We take special orders. Just call us! Don't know what you want? Just stop by and we can help!