Carolina silverbell
* Common name: Carolina silverbell
A silverbell tree in bloom, left, and a closeup of the flowers, right.
Credit: Meneerke Bloem and JMK/Wikimedia Commons
* Botanical name: Halesia carolina
* What it is: Carolina silverbells are mid-sized flowering trees that are native to the southeastern U.S. They’re usually found growing as under-story trees in nature.
Silverbells are at their best in April and early May when they produce bell-shaped white flowers. Four-winged, nutlike fruits follow the flowers later in the season.
The leaves are medium green, mildly toothed, and oval in shape, coming to a point at the tips. They turn yellow in fall.
Silverbells can be grown with multiple trunks or can be trained to single-trunk specimens, which is how garden centers typically sell them.
* Size: Figure on a height of about 30 to 40 and a width of 25 to 30 feet in 25 years.
* Where to use: Since they’re native to under-story wooded settings, silverbells grow best in part sun or dappled light in moist, rich, slightly acidic soil. They don’t do well in alkaline soil.
* Care: Keep roots consistently damp the first two years, then weekly soakings are helpful during hot, dry spells.
Fertilizer usually isn’t needed if a mulch layer is maintained.
Prune after flowering to thin excess or crossing branches and to shorten too-long branches, if needed.
* Great partner: Part-shade-preferring shrubs make good underplantings, such as leucothoe, azaleas, dwarf rhododendrons, Virginia sweetspire, and summersweet. Sweetbox is a good evergreen groundcover shrub. Good perennial partners include white wood aster, turtlehead, native pachysandra, foamflowers, coralbells, and woodland phlox.