Tulip Tree Garden

The Tulip Tree Gar­den was installed in the fall of 2009 by an Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence class. Pre­vi­ous­ly, the site con­tained most­ly lawn, with a few shrubs and flow­ers.  The stu­dents chose to design a more for­mal gar­den, with flow­ers in con­cen­tric cir­cles around a tulip tree (Liri­o­den­dron tulipfera), a beau­ti­ful native tree with tulip-shaped flow­ers. This gar­den teach­es the impor­tance of a nat­u­ral­is­tic design in sus­tain­able land­scap­ing.  The for­mal design requires more human inter­ven­tion to main­tain the geom­e­try, and small changes, such as a plant that dies back or the emer­gence of a seedling, instant­ly appears unkempt.  Thus we have cho­sen to let the gar­den con­tin­ue to evolve, allow­ing plants to grow and seed into new areas.

The fol­low­ing plants are in the Tulip Tree Garden:

Tree

• Tulip tree (Liri­o­den­dron tulipfera)

Shrubs

• Oak­leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quer­ci­fo­lia)

Grass­es

• North­ern sea oats (Chas­man­thi­um lat­i­foli­um)
• Pan­ic grass (Pan­icum amarum)

Wild­flow­ers

• Black-eyed Susan (Rud­beck­ia hir­ta)
• Foam­flower (Tiarel­la cordi­fo­lia)
• Pur­ple cone­flower (Echi­nacea pur­purea)
• Gar­den phlox (Phlox pan­ic­u­la­ta)
• Coral­bells (Heuchera amer­i­cana)
• Grass-leaf blaz­ingstar (Lia­tris gramini­fo­lia)
• Com­mon milk­weed (Ascle­pias syr­i­a­ca)