Shrub of the month

[AndyC]

New growth on many shrubs looks good at this time of the year.
My favourites in no particular order

Daphniphyllum macropodum



Podocarpus henkelii



Rhamnus imeretina



Who needs flowers!

What's looking good in your gardens this month?

[charlie]

got a couple of species Deutzia from Mark fillon looking stunning (he cant remember the names and I didnt write them down!) will try and do some pictures one of them usually has the flowers caught by frost so the mild winter has been a bonus

[Chad]

Illicium simonsii, less impressive in flower than Illicium anisatum.
Had I known, I'd have had the other one!





Trochodendron aralioides, the Taiwan form. Faster growing and looks a bit fresher than the Chinese form. I have both.

Chad

[AndyC]

got a couple of species Deutzia from Mark fillon looking stunning (he cant remember the names and I didnt write them down!) will try and do some pictures one of them usually has the flowers caught by frost so the mild winter has been a bonus

I don't remember having ever grown anything in the genus so yes, pictures please.
Your mature Heptacodium miconioides must be looking good at the moment, even without flowers. I was inspired to aquire one having seen yours.
My young plant



Chad, the new growth on your Illicium simonsii reminds me very much of Persea Thunbergii which is also looking good here at the moment



Metapanax delavayi (a Mark Fillan hybrid of) also doing well

[charlie]

Couple of pics of the Deutzia, as I said no idea on the identity other than they are species rather than garden hybrids
Sun was a bit bright for good colour representation its rather more pink than it looks in the pictures but you can see it forms quite a dense smallish shrub

DSC_0016 by charliepridham, on Flickr

DSC_0017 by charliepridham, on Flickr

The second one is later flowering and much taller and when it does come into flower its white over a long season

DSC_0018 by charliepridham, on Flickr

[MartinNicklin]

This is a great subject because the possibilities are endless.

Andy, I wish I could say the same for my Podocarpus henkellii. It didn’t like being in a pot so I took the risk and planted it out. Even though the spot is sheltered, it took quite a battering so I don’t enjoy the same flush of fresh foliage as you:



Acers are looking great with little frost to ruin them. Not to everyone’s taste but definitely to mine is Ukigumo. It amazes me how it survives with so little green:



I first saw Hydrangea Light My Fire a couple of years ago and they were the most striking mopheads I had seen on any. I bought one from T&M and although the flowers haven’t been a patch on the one which first appealed to me, the foliage is an amazing, almost black colour:



In contrast, the new leaves of H. Gold Rush are an exquisite, velvety yellow with red edges. Great now but tends to look beaten up as the season progresses:



This Nandina towers above me. Don’t know which one it is but it’s a very striking thing. When the new shoots emerge and they catch the sun they are an intense, glowing red:



Nothing rare, just lovely. As Andy says, who needs flowers? I do! Jovellana violacea always fills me with joy. I wish I knew how to get cuttings to grow of this:



And can we count climbers as shrubs? If so, my Akebia racemosa from Charlie has romped away. Incidentally, it fruited last year, after the other Akebia had finished so I wonder if it is self-fertile? Anyway, a lovely thing:





Many apologies. My original post muddled up who posted what in my responses. Now corrected.

[NigelJ]

Neolitsea

Zanthoxohylum laetum

Cercidophyllum japonica

Camellia tsai

[charlie]

Charlie Your mature Heptacodium miconioides must be looking good at the moment, even without flowers. I was inspired to aquire one having seen yours.
My young plant

Was looking good but todays wind has given it and a lot of other things a right good bashing, how was it elsewhere?

[MartinNicklin]

Same here. I hate these spring winds. They make such a mess of new, fragile growth.