Fringetree
Chionanthus virginicus
also called white fringetree, old man's beard, grancy graybeard
A small native tree that disappears under a cloud of fragrant white fringe for two weeks in late spring, unbothered by cold, clay or city air, and never outgrowing a small yard.
- Type
- Tree · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green · Gold and chartreuse
- Flower color
- White
- Sunlight
- Full sun to part shade
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Moist, fertile, well-drained; tolerates clay
- Feeding
- Gentle all-organic
- USDA zones
- 4a–9a
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Plant out
- 14 days before the last spring frost
- Plant spacing
- 16 ft 5 in
- In-row spacing
- 13 ft 1 in
- Between rows
- 19 ft 8 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody, with a taproot it keeps
- Working depth
- 24 in–5 ft
- Can reach
- 10 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 30–49 ft across, about 1.5–2.5× the width of the plant
It anchors downwards as well as sideways, which is what lets it stand in a gale and what makes it hate being moved. Plant it small: past a few years in the ground a taprooted tree transplants badly, and often not at all.
Deep-rooted and slow to re-establish, so it is planted in spring, from a container, and left where it is put.
The habit is Fringetree’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- When
- Not harvested. Prune, lightly and rarely, right after the June bloom.
- What to look for
- A crossing limb or a low branch in the way. If nothing is wrong, do nothing.
- How to harvest
- It blooms on old wood, so any shaping happens immediately after flowering or the next spring's cloud is forfeit. It naturally grows as a low-branched multi-stem; let it.
- How often
- Rarely. This is a tree for people who do not enjoy pruning.
- Storing the crop
- Nothing to store. Leave the blue fruit on the females; thrushes and mockingbirds clear it by October.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Emerald ash borer
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Scale insects
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Scale insects
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & TrichogrammaHunts Emerald ash borer
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
One of the last natives to leaf out, sometimes waiting until May in the North. It is not dead; it is late, every single year. Females carry blue olive-like fruit the birds take (it is in the olive family), but both sexes flower.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com