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A seedling I have just bought. I am still very doubtful about the hardiness of Schefflera
but there are clearly a few species that will grow outside and produce viable seed and this one seems
to look good as well. Worth a try. I have finaly tried planting one outside. Other gardens have demonstrated that it is both relable and distinctive and it seems to me that it is one of the really good recent introductions. Trees and Shrubs online says: "Schefflera taiwaniana is one of the most significant plant introductions of recent years, and certainly the most valuable of the genus in terms of general garden usefulness and adaptability. While its foliage is not as large as that of some of the others, it makes up for this in the elegance of its pose and the many leaflets. The species was first collected by Edward Needham in the early 1990s (T. Hudson, pers. comm. 2008) and this stock has proved to be a great success, in Cornwall and elsewhere, forming good bushy plants to 3 m or more in height. It is particularly elegant, with longer, slightly more undulate leaflets than found in some more recent collections. The majority of stock available in commerce, however, has been distributed from Crûg Farm from gatherings made in Taiwan from 1993 onwards ... At Crûg Farm it has grown outside for more than 12 years with no problems and fruits heavily, and it is showing equal toughness wherever it has been planted in the United Kingdom ..." Crug Farm Plants say of their collection BSWJ.3788: "Originating from one of our seed collections gathered in a protected botanical treasure chest at Yuan-Yang, northern Taiwan in 1996. Naturally forming a large multi-stemmed shrub 3-4m tall, yet much smaller in our garden, easily trained to a bushy shrub with minimal pinching-out. The symmetry of the matt foliage cannot help but enthuse any gardener who longs for structure. The leaves of this form are held on elegantly long red or purple petioles 45-50cm long, composed of 7-11 leaflets, which gradually taper from the base to a broader extremity before tapering down to a tipped apex. The greenish terminal inflorescences appear in late summer, maturing to purple fruit by the spring. An easily grown plant which has shrugged off all the weather that the past thirty years has thrown at it." |
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| 15th April 2013 | ||
