For the most part, I prefer my garden to my plants. I’d rather plant something I find boring by itself, for garden design, than a thrilling specimen that disrupts the big picture.
Except, I’m really fond of my Pieris Japonica, particularly the cultivar called Mountain Fire. My best friend thinks it’s weird. You see it above, disheveled and unruly behind a wayward Eastern redbud that keeps trying to grow back, some lavender, short bamboo, and two fronds of seeded grass.
New leaves look like apricot-colored flowers.
The flowers themselves resemble lilies of the valley. Sometimes exuberant,
Sometimes moody.
Pieris even does an excellent quiet sulk.
The rest of my garden takes its cues from classics. I’ve got a woodland out back, California natives waiting for butterflies in the side yard, and an English-ish cottage-ish kind of thing out front. So, like any family of archetypes, it’s good to have a Dramatic Eccentric. An Artsy Cousin of the plant world.
I bring it inside if and only if it promises to behave.
As for care and feeding – seems it will like the haunts of rhododendrons and azaleas. Acidic soil with organic amendments, light shade and/or a little sun, reasonable amounts of garden water. However, it wants to be 6-10 feet high, and if you prefer it shorter, as I do, be prepared to prune early and often
Should grow well along the Pacific Coast, requiring more and more watering as you go south. Should do well in any temperate climate, i.e. hardiness zones 5-8, and can live through a little frost. Deer don’t like it. Apparently, however, Pieries doesn’t like Missouri. Eccentrics of all type, man, you just never know.
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13 Responses
Very ladylike,if I may say,this beautiful Pieris Japonica of yours!
Lilies of the valley,humble and beautiful,are among my favorite flowers.
In my garden there are a lot of Thujas in the role of fence,and my favourite Cedrus libani ,Photinia,Cotoneaster ,some hibiscus( I am serial killer sort of gardener,so I prefer trees to bushes and flowers,more resistent to my care) and grass (and ,yes, three beautiful bushes thanks to my mum ,but I’m not even sure about their names). On my balcony I have Tonkas this year. Maybe will change them for heather till winter,low temperatures and snow ( yes,we usually have a lot of snow. I hate it in the city and always hope that this winter we will skip it. Sometimes we do)
Your garden seems beautiful,I admire people who are so excellent in gardening!
Have a nice weekend!
After a lot of boasting with beautiful weather,we are having heavy rain ( but with sun in my heart,my son is here for two days :-)
Dottoressa
@dottoressa, Serial killer gardner, ha! I have photinia and cotoneaster too! I’m going to have to look up Tonkas. And I’m not really an excellent gardener, just an optimistic, persistent one, living in a garden that was well-designed, in a very forgiving climate.
I love the textures and the surprises!
@Cathy, Yes, those are exactly the things I like too.
These are just gorgeous! In Australia we call them ‘Temple Bells’
@Justine, What a wonderful name. I looked, and the plant is native to Eastern China, Japan, and Taiwan. So “Temple Bells” is appropriate!
Luff your garden posts. I am all about the plants, big picture be damned. I find my self in a formal garden with hedges and I am already sneaking in bromeliads and succulent and pelargoniums because why not? x
@Faux Fuchsia, So pleased you like them! I feel like I’m just getting the hang of how to take the photos OK enough, as I did the outfit posts etc. The idea of formal hedges punctuated with Bs and Ss and Ps tickles me pink and seems the best summary of FF that I can imagine.
It’s really quite lovely when you bring it inside and put it in a beautiful crystal vase!
@Jane, Why thank you ma’am. Even the Artsy Cousins know how to attend a formal dinner;).
I tried and tried to grow these in Grosse Pointe, they were at a show house and I fell in love. It was not to be, killed then deader than dead. I even cried. Now I have a boring weeping cherry in that spot that grows out of whack as everyone tries to prune it a different way. Love your garden.
@Nola Rice, Thank you so much. I can wholly understand crying at the death of a plant crush. And from looks of it on Mr. Google, a weeping cherry really needs an artist’s hand on the pruners.
I did not know this plant. So beautiful. I love your posts about your gardens, like conversations with a friend, they are. The garden I mean.
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