It has to be said that our looking good list is a bit short at the moment.  Lots of the stuff that would have been brightening up the sales area by this time in recent years is being very sulky this season, and not yet looking its best.   In fact, not really looking much at all;  there are signs that things are beginning to move at last, but the season is lagging well behind what we’ve become accustomed to, and last years blooms are little more than fattening buds right now.

Skimmia Kew Green

But one or two plants just seem to shrug of whatever the weather throws at them, and Skimmia x confusa ‘Kew Green’ is looking as good as ever.

We first saw this in a garden situation at RHS Rosemoor, where they’re planted as an understory below trees (Betula utilis probably, which are planted in abundance there, but we can’t remember for sure).

We copied this idea in our own garden, under trees which have a much denser summer canopy than Betula, and they’re doing remarkably well, growing slowly, but thriving in the dry shade.

Those in the picture are on our sales benches, but looking pretty much as one with those in the garden.

It has the RHS Award of Garden Merit (all the best plants do you know) grows (slowly) to maybe 1 mt tall, and 1500 cms wide, and has clusters of small greenish-yellow flowers in spring (the buds in the photo will burst soon!).      It needs a shady spot, but copes with pretty much any soil.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 22:41 and is filed under Plants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.