A Shrub to Know and Grow

A great shrub for multi season interest is kerria japonica. I just have the straight species–and I’ll post photos of it in a few weeks when it bursts into bloom, because it is great for early spring interest as well.

But I wanted to post a photo of it before it leafs out because it is a great winter interest shrub, and it is one that gets very little attention as such.

This plant is every bit as striking as yellow twig dogwoods (cornus sericea or stolonifera) or yellow twig willows (salix lutea) for winter color with its acid-green stems but it rarely gets mention for the twigs.  In fact, it rarely gets mention in the literature at all.

It is exceptionally well-behaved, needing little to no care at all.  It is growing in early spring sun here, but once the deciduous trees leaf out it will only get about an hour of mid-afternoon sun–not what the plant tags recommend but it is easily reaching its mature height of 5-7′ (although because plants can’t read, I have seen heights listed from 3′ to 9′!  I’d hate to get one of the 9′-ers, although it seems to take pruning nicely).

Last year was the first time I pruned it in 5 years.  I removed dead wood at the base and tip dieback.  Again it is remarkably accommodating when it does die back–it usually does so to a node so pruning is a snap!

This photo shows the branch color a little better.

It’s adaptable to most of the country, growing in zones 4-9.