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A pretty little evergreen from China. It makes slow but tough ground cover in light shade. The little sprays of pure white flowers are one of the cool delights of May. Plant Delights Nursery say: "(aka: Speirantha convallarioides) Speirantha gardenii is a monotypic (all alone in its genus), closely related to the better known genera of rohdea, reineckia, and convallaria. In the wild Speirantha grows on hilly broadleaf forests up to 3,000' elevation in the Chinese provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang. In the garden, our 10-year-old clump has reached 3' in diameter. The evergreen 10" leaves radiate from a thick, slowly spreading rhizome, resembling narrow lily-of-the-valley foliage. In April-May, patches of Speirantha gardenii are adorned with short spikes of white, alien, satellite-like flowers just topping the foliage...a superb woodland plant and quite a bit more winter hardy than books indicate." Rare Plants UK say: "This is often described as looking like an evergreen Lily-of-the-Valley (Convallaria) although the leaves are thicker and of a slightly yellowish green. It has 12cm spikes of open, starry bells, which are held sideways and not hanging as in Convallaria. The flowers have a light but delightful fragrance. It likes light shade or dappled sun, in the garden and is easily grown in a humus-enriched soil such as suits other “woodsey species” such as Convallaria itself, Polygonatum and Trillium. It is best in outside, in a suitable garden spot, this doesn’t deserve to be tortured in a pot. Planted out the plant makes a tight, strongly perennial clump 15-20cm tall. It is said to have a spread of 45cm, but in 26 years of growing it here, it has only made clumps 30cm across. Fully hardy here over many years of growing it. This has has taken our all-time low of under -17°C (this is 0°F) in the ground and not batted a leaf (as it is virtually evergreen). Trouble-free though “never a bride, always a bridesmaid” applies here this is a quietly lovely little plant." |
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| 11th August 2005 | ||
