The Fringe

The Fringe Tree is a signature of ours — we like to incorporate it into our garden designs often for many reasons:

1. It’s extremely UNDER-UTILIZED! Often overlooked, and instead used more minimally, if at all. Rather than just letting the fringe be the supporting element of a garden, we like to make it a focal point!

2. It. Smells. AMAZING. Really… if you haven’t ever sniffed the delicate white flower on this tree, we think you are missing out. Which brings us back to our first point that these amazing trees are under-appreciated!

3. The UNIQUE, white, fringe-like flower brings an interesting textural element to a garden design. It blooms in the late-spring / early-summer, looking quite nice next to other bloomers at the time like allium.

4. Outside of the bloom time, the tree keeps a nice round foliage, seemingly similar to a magnolia’s leaves, looking great ALL SEASON.

5. It actually produces a FRUIT! A purple-blue berry is produced in the late-summer / early-fall, which attract birds. AND it’s even edible to humans! It may not be very appetizing plucked right off of the tree (have you ever tried an olive this way?) as it will be quite bitter. However, similar to olives they can be harvested and pickled.

6. And finally, it’s NATIVE to the Eastern U.S. which is always a plus! Nothing like showing off a species originating from our own region of the world.

So, while we know that other Spring-blooming trees and shrubs get all the attention (looking at you magnolia, lilacs, cherry tree, etc.) we like to give the Fringe Tree, chionanthus virginicus, the spotlight! Don’t get us wrong, those others are beautiful, too, but adding a fringe adds another explosion of bloom and fragrance JUST after the lilacs are finished with their time in the sun.