Continuing this week with a profile of plants for winter interest which also perform well in the shade, we have Skimmia Japonica Rubella
Tough as old boots and not bad looking if you focus your eyes in a manner that doesn’t expect to be blown away. This popular evergreen plant in Summer has glossy green leaves followed by deep red flower buds in Autumn which look very attractive right through till the end of Winter. Spring arrives and you are treated to creamy white panicles of scented flowers.
The picture below shows how it is looking in mid February. The yellowing of the leaves which you see is often an indication that the soil is not quite acidic enough. I will try a top dressing of ericaceous compost to see if that helps.
This problem with Skimmias can also occur if planted in a position which gets too much sun.
Listing every plant we have grown over the past forty years may well include the good the bad and, well I don’t think any are exactly ugly but I will draw a line at the unwanted, like say, dandelions!
This list is fairly taking shape, have a look at my page (A to Z of our plants) those with a plant title beside the thumbnail opens up to my post on that particular plant.
Back to our rather good Skimmia, the flowers in Spring are somewhat attractive although I think they look best in bud come Autumn/ Winter.
Position your Skimmia in semi shade for best results, although they seem to do pretty well in full shade .add some ericaceous compost to the soil and also top dress with this if it happens to be on the alkaline side.
*** Pruning ***
Just after the flowers have gone over in Spring is the time to prune. Do bear in mind, this is a slow growing plant and all you should really do is
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My plant came home with me in the early 1990s from Western Hills Nursery in Northern California, which still sells it today (including by mail, apparently).Much smaller on all fronts than the all-green Kerria japonica, and with single (not the bawdier puffy double) flowers, K.j. ‘Picta’ is an airy thing, perhaps 4 or 5 feet tall. Because it’s a bit of a colonizer, the potential width varies greatly; mine is now 10 feet across. I dig up suckers and share them or move them to another part of the garden, if it gets too wide, and a few times over the years when it was looking thin, I simply cut the whole thing to the g
The candelabra primulas, ranging from white to reddish (even bawdier than my favorite bawdy primrose!), require no care whatsoever: Plant a few in a shady, moist spot (the classic location: streamside) and let them do their thing. I started with several maybe eight years ago. If they’re happy, they will colonize, sowing around and moving a bit, with more plants some years and fewer others.The ones nearest to the edge where bed meets lawn here sow into the turf, a habit I consider generous of them, not thuggish. I simply dig out the little babies early in the month, when the foliage is the size of baby salad greens, and move them into new spots or pot them up to share with friends. They don’t miss a beat; the foliage quickly expands to nearly 12 inches.Primula japonica blooms from mid-May until almost July for me, and in the most a
I THINK MY VARIEGATED KERRIA (along with various other flowering shrubs) has decided that 2011 is the Year of Everything in Excess, covering itself in gaudy gold flowers the likes of which I’ve never seen, and spilling out into the path like never before. (You may recall from its plant profile how this shade-garden favorite looks in a “typical” year.) In the photo foreground is one of a few new whimsical gates a neighbor friend built out of some basic hardware and a few rusty old bits of tag-sale finds I’d grown tired of moving around.
We live and learn as gardeners. It is unlikely that those who fell in love with Japanese spirea (Spiraea japonica) when it was imported to the United States a century ago had any idea that the gorgeous ornamental, with its showy pink flowers, would be a threat to native ecosystems today. Yet it clearly is, and responsible homeowners should find an alternative to Spirea.
You won’t go wrong Growing Pieris Japonica Katsura in a pot. In fact, if I were asked which evergreen shrub would I recommend for growing in a pot, I would have no hesitation in suggesting Pieris.