Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia) is a native understory tree with shiny, dark green palmate leaves (leaflets whose stems emanate from a single central point) that are attractive in spring and early summer. Its most striking feature are its red, tubular flowers that bloom in May. The flowers attract ruby-throated hummingbirds and bloom about the same time that the hummingbirds return to the area in spring migration. Buckeyes are the name for the shiny seeds that ripen in the fall. F&B planted a red buckeye on the edge of Woodward Park at the northwest corner of Oak Street and Maple Avenue in spring of 2018. Please take a look at its flowery display.
Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maacki) is a non-native invasive bush honeysuckle shrub or small tree noted for its tubular white-yellow flowers and bright red paired berries that are popular with birds, but which provide little nutritional value. When not flowering or producing fruit, Amur honeysuckle is still easy to identify by its vertically ridged and furrowed bark, hollow terminal stems, and opposite 2-3 inch long leaves. Amur honeysuckle thrives in our yards, along our streets and avenues, and in our parks and woods. Among the numerous ecological concerns with bush honeysuckles, those that are most significant for Washington Grove are that it impedes reforestation of cut or disturbed areas and prevents reestablishment of native plants, forms dense thickets too shady for most native species, and attracts deer, which increase the abundance of ticks that can spread Lyme disease and other illnesses. By law, in the state of Maryland, one cannot propagate, import, transfer, sell, purchase, or transport this plant. We have a policy to remove Amur honeysuckle from town property and replace with similar sized, more suitable plants.
Plants in Washington Grove, from F&B member and Master Gardener Jay Everhart