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Another Winter Bloomer

1/18/2024

As a plant geek, I love finding plants that fit into certain obscure categories and incorporating them in my landscape. Plants that bloom in winter, for instance, or plants with flowers that you can smell before you can see, or plants that have a unique backstory are just a few classifications that come to mind. At least one plant fits into all three of those categories - Edgeworthia chrysantha.

Edgeworthia chrysanthan blooms in the winter, starting with white buds.

Edgeworthia is a medium-sized deciduous shrub with several wonderful attributes. Let’s start with the flowers. Bloom begins as early as December, with swollen white buds along otherwise bare branches. As the buds open, clusters of tiny white tubular florets with golden-yellow centers are revealed.

The flower clusters hang downwards and look a bit like small white bells. The flowers are attractive, and especially welcome at a time of year when blossoms are hard to come by, but will not stop you in your tracks by appearance alone. However, the scent of the blooms is much more powerful than their size would let on, and you

Edgeworthia chrysanthan blooms are fragrant creamy yellow-white florets in globular clusters.

won’t have to lean in close to notice. The scent is very pleasant and similar to that of gardenia. Flowers last quite a while, perhaps into early April, depending on the weather.

Edgeworthia chrysanthan leaves are long and brilliant green, making an attractive landscaping plant.

As the flowers begin to fade in the warmth of spring, leaves appear. Edgeworthia’s leaves are long and slender, almost tropical-looking, creating an interesting look even when not in bloom. This plant grows best in partial shade with moist soil. In this environment, the leaves will be a lush green color with just a hint of silver pubescence, or fuzz, on the upper surface. Though it can grow in full sun, the leaf color will be duller and not stand out nearly as much. In the fall, the leaves turn a nice shade of yellow, which won’t be as spectacular as several other trees and shrubs during autumn, but is nonetheless a welcome flash of color.

Ever wonder how plants are named? In the case of Edgeworthia, it was named by an Irish botanist, Michael Edgeworth, and his half-sister, Maria. The species chrysantha refers to the golden yellow flowers typically associated with the plant. As with many plants, there are also multiple common names floating around, including paperbush, paper plant, rice paper plant, and oriental paper bush. Many of the common names are derived from the fact that some Asian cultures peel Edgeworthia’s bark to use as paper. There aren’t many cultivars on the market, though ‘Snow Cream’ is reported to have larger flowers and leaves than the species, and ‘Red Dragon’ has orange-red blooms that unfortunately are not fragrant.

Photos and information found at NC extension Gardener Plant Toolbox:
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/edgeworthia-chrysantha/

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A Splash of Color for Winter

1/12/2024

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Most successful amateur and professional landscapers strive to create landscapes that are interesting and attractive year-round. It may not seem quite as easy to find plants to include in your landscape that are interesting during the winter months, but there are many plants which bloom during the colder months and bring much needed color to our largely dormant landscapes. One of my favorite winter-blooming plants is the hellebore, or Lenten rose.

The blooms of the Lenten rose (Helleborus orientalis) range from white, to purple, to pink, to red.

Lenten roses are busy perennials with lovely green leaves.

Lenten roses are a group of plants in the genus Helleborus, with Helleborus orientalis being the species used most commonly in our gardens. They are native to a wide range of Europe and Asia, but perform well in gardens throughout much of the United States. They are generally short, bushy perennial plants, with evergreen leaves and flowers that bloom from mid-February to early April. They grow best in well-drained organic soils in shady areas. The leaves are toxic if ingested, so don’t go grazing on your Lenten roses after you plant them, but this characteristic thankfully keeps deer, rabbits, and other critters away. Deer love many other shade-loving plants, particularly hostas, so mixing in Lenten roses in those areas may help keep animal pests at bay.

Bloom color ranges from white to pink to purple to red, with nearly every shade in between represented. The individual blooms are cup shaped and arise from the tip of each stem. Blooms are incredibly long-lasting and while the color may fade from the start of bloom to the finish, that dynamic color change is itself interesting to watch. The glossy green foliage complements the flowers well, and because the flowers are borne at the tips, the dense foliage does not typically obscure them. Often times the cup shaped flowers will point downward, in which case I suppose they more accurately resemble a bell than a cup, but they are still quite easy to find when in full bloom.

Another species, Helleborus foetidus, shares many of the same characteristics stated above, though the flower colors tend to be limited to white and occasionally purple. However, H. foetidus has much more delicate leaves, with long, slender leaflets. While probably not as spectacular in bloom as many of the H. orientalis cultivars, the foliage is even more attractive and more compatible with other landscape plants that enjoy shade.

Helleborus foetidus

Helleborus foetidus is a fabulous landscaping plant.

There are two many cultivars and varieties of Lenten rose to name, but the Ice N’ Roses and Frostkiss series are particularly popular. I enjoy the Frostkiss series for the prominence of the veins on each leaf, which gives the plants an almost variegated appearance.

Lenten roses are generally pest-free and quite hardy, though you may need to clean up old foliage from time to time to keep the plants looking their best. They will occasionally get crown rot in wet soils, or leaf spot if too much moisture accumulates on their leaves, so erring on the dry side is usually best.

On January 27, the Pitt County Extension Master Gardener volunteers will be hosting their annual speaker’s event, featuring retired Virginia Zoo Landscape Coordinator Marie Mims Butler. This yearly event is always a popular gathering for gardening enthusiasts! Tickets are now on sale at the Pitt County Cooperative Extension office and at Wild Birds Unlimited in Greenville.

Matthew Stevens is the County Extension Director and horticulture agent for North Carolina Cooperative Extension’s Pitt County Center. If you have any questions about this article or other aspects of your home gardening, please contact the Pitt County Master Gardener Infoline at 252-902-1705.

Photos and information found at NC extension Gardener Plant Toolbox:
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/helleborus-orientalis/

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Plants that Shine in Winter

1/7/2024

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By Matt Stevens, Pitt County Extension Director & Horticulture Agent

One of my favorite parts about winter landscapes is that when all the leaves have fallen, certain other plant characteristics become much more noticeable. Many plants, it turns out, have interesting bark, colorful stems, or even unique architectural arrangements of branches that tend to be obscured the rest of the year by the leaves. If you are a plant nerd like me, you always have an eye out for plants that have these interesting attributes that shine in winter. One particularly interesting plant that stands out in winter months is Corylus avellana, ‘Contorta’, commonly known as Harry Lauder’s walking stick.

Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (Corylus avellana, ‘Contorta’)

Harry Lauder’s walking stick is one of the most unique landscape plants you are likely to encounter. It is a large shrub, growing 8 to 10 feet high and wide, notable for its gnarled and twisted branches. The intricate twisting of the branches is something you see on only a handful of other plants – corkscrew willow and trifoliate orange are the only two that immediately spring to mind as being similar. During much of the year, the walking stick is covered with leaves, of course, which hides its branches to some extent. The plant really shines in winter, however, when the leaves have dropped and the branches are exposed to clear view.

Although walking stick is grown primarily because of its unique branches, it does have some other ornamental characteristics of note. It blooms in late winter, with 2-3’ long greenish-yellow flowers called catkins hanging from the branches. Catkins are slender, male flowers; birch, willow, and oak have a similar type of bloom. While catkins are not the most remarkable floral form generally, the fact that the flowers arrive when not much other color is present in most landscapes helps. Additionally, the fall foliage color is decent, as the dark green leaves turn a pale yellow before they drop.

Male Catkin flowers of the Corylus avellana, ‘Contorta’

Walking stick is a grafted plant, and gardeners who grow this plant must pay attention to the suckers that emerge from below the graft union. These suckers will not have the contorted characteristic; rather, they will grow straight and quite tall if not removed. The suckers also tend to have large wide leaves that will obscure the intricacies of the twisted bark above. Other than this suckering and some occasional feeding from pests like Japanese beetles and tent caterpillars, walking stick is a relatively easy plant to grow with few problems. Avoid planting it in excessively wet areas, and plant in full sun to partial shade.

Photos from and further information at:
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/corylus-avellana-contorta/

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Director's Choice

Another Winter Bloomer

A Splash of Color for Winter

Plants that Shine in Winter

Matt Stevens

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