Category: Beautiful bark
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Clethra fargesii
This large Chinese shrub can reach 4metres each way and if you have the right aspect and enough space it certainly pays its way! Its white lily of the valley style flowers are produced in midsummer and are beautifully fragrant with a musky scent. the dead flowers hang like copper bangles and the autumn foliage
Stephen Ryan
Rubus cockburnianus
It is not every nursery owner that would recommend a Blackberry to their clients, but I am not every nursery owner! The Ghost Bramble is a thicket making arching shrub with grey green leaves and small white flowers which really comes into its own in winter when the plant is bare and its white coated
Stephen Ryan
Dendriopoterium menendezii
This mouthful of a name belongs to a very hardy evergreen shrub from the Canary Islands that grows to a couple of metres tall and wide. It has an open framework of branches with coppery bark and it produces spikes of tiny pink flowers with green sepals in spring. It is however for its attractive
Stephen Ryan
Cydonia sinensis
The Chinese Quince that was until recently called Pseudocydonia has to be one of the best small trees you could have! It has attractive deep pink flowers in mid spring followed by large oblong yellow fruit in summer that is by the way edible, then the foliage turns stunning colours in autumn and as if that wasn’t
Stephen Ryan
Pinus patula
The Mexican pine has to be one of the most elegant species that you could grow as a specimen tree in a fair sized lawn and it is cold hardy (at least in Australia) and heat and drought tolerant as well. It will quickly grow to 20metres or so and its tassel like needles hanging
Stephen Ryan
Hamamelis intermedia ‘Pallida’
This amazing Genus of deciduous and mainly winter flowering shrubs are a joy in any sheltered garden in the cooler climates. I have a specimen of ‘Pallida’ in my nursery display garden that was planted in 1986 and it is now about 4metres tall and with its spreading horizontal branches at least 6metres across. I
Stephen Ryan
Rubus thibetanus
The ghost bramble isn’t for every gardener but quite a few plants I grow would fit under the same title. After all not every body wants a prickly suckering shrub but having said that how many of your have a Rugosa Rose? This plant will make a cluster of arching stems to about 1.5metres tall
Stephen Ryan
Acer griseum
This has to be one of the most desirable small trees for its bark and autumnal colour so why don’t we see it more? The answer could be that seedling raised plants take two years to germinate and the seed has about one percent viability! It is also only recently that a compatible understock has
Stephen Ryan
Melanoselinum decipiens
This truly stunning plant has a long history as a garden plant at Mt. Macedon where I live. Nearly all the large gardens have colonies of it and it has certainly been grown here for decades before I was born. It has always been known by local gardeners as Tree Angelica and I only got
Stephen Ryan
Acer ‘Esk Flamingo’
Talk about a plant that does something all year round! This maple that was apparently discovered in New Zealand has so much going for it I feel the nead to take it season by season. In spring its spear head shaped leaves emerge and are white and pink mottled, interestingly the foliage becomes more variegated
Stephen Ryan