Hazel’s natural range includes northwestern Asia and Europe, from the Mediterranean north to central Scandinavia and the coast of Finland. In Finland it grows in nutrient-rich deciduous and mixed forest. It prefers slopes and the foot of cliffs, and thrives in the protection of forest groves.
Black maple is a close relative of sugar maple (A. saccharum), the two being difficult to distinguish, with the black supposedly having darker bark and less sharply defined leaf lobes. It is distinctly more southern in its range but has nevertheless grown well at Mustila from seed collected at Guelph in south Ontario in 1992. It is said to be very drought-tolerant, and hardy in both the heat and the cold of the American Midwest.
This very variable crack willow hybrid is a cross between white willow (S.alba) and crack willow (S. euxina) over many generations, and back-crossings with the parent species. Individual trees vary in habit, in height, in the colour of their shoots and in the shape of their leaves. In fertile moist places they grow into large broad-crowned trees in some ways resembling the oil trees of southern lands.
Yellow day lily with narrow leaves is an old traditional perennial in Finland. In Finnish it is also called the lemon lily. Day lilies are not related to lilies but they belong to the different Family. Their scientific name Hemerocallis comes from Creek and means being beautiful just for one day.
The blue-flowered perennial cornflower is at its best in a woodland garden where it may spread freely. If the site is not too rich, the perennial cornflower will spread moderately via rhizomes. Its habit is also better on these sites. These prerequisites are met in the arid, stony north end of Mustila’s Pähkinärinne (Walnut slope) where countless perennial cornflowers blossom at the height of summer.
In full flower large leaved lime is a showy fragrant tree whose range covers continental Europe. It is large, with a smooth trunk producing no suckers; the crown is round and regular. As the common name suggests, leaves are large, larger than those of common lime. Flowers are produced in fan-shaped hanging clusters of 2-5, while the fruit are often large, and more or less clearly divided into 5 hard segments.
The large-leaved North American thimbleberry is a park and hedging shrub completely hardy in Finland. The Rubus genus to which it belongs includes herbs and suckering shrubs, many of which are grown for their fruit or for decoration. The most familiar in Finland is probably the raspberry (R. idaeus), which grows wild throughout the country.
The oak is perhaps the most highly valued of all European trees. The strength of its timber, its size and resistance to decay (for example in ships, furniture and wine barrels) have been contributing factors. Trees can live for over a thousand years and large old oaks are important landmarks. Old oaks are rarely seen in Finland because for hundreds of years oak forests have been destroyed to make way for farming, and for their valuable timber.
This is an extremely showy tree when it flowers like a white cloud at the end of May. In late summer the flowers develop into red, pea-sized berries with a hard stone seed, tasting bittersweet or acidic. The narrow pointed leaves take on very attractive red to orange autumn colour. The crown is narrow and airy, the branches usually erect, though in the variety ‘Bertta’ the crown is broader and the branches distinctly drooping.
A cloud of white flowers on a stiff-branched thorny bush make an interesting combination which seems almost unreal. The same sensation is repeated in autumn when the dark twiggy branches are decorated by a multitude of tiny red apples. These combinations are offered by the Sargent crabapple, and in between the bush dresses itself in yellow and red autumn leaves.