Category: Foliage plants
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Viburnum henryi
The Genus Viburnum is a remarkable one with a huge diversity of uses and features. In fact you could have a whole garden made up of nothing but and it would be interesting and exciting, with evergreen and deciduous, some with scent,some with berries, some with autumn colour, some with tiered branches or round ground
Stephen Ryan
Rubus rugosus
There are blackberries and there are blackberries! I spend a lot of time destroying the weedy ones and almost no time tending this handsome beastie. It has long arching canes so needs a fence or other support to tie it back to and the oldest canes need removing every couple of years otherwise it couldn’t
Stephen Ryan
Malus tschonoskii
God knows how one should pronounce the species name of this fabulous Japanese Crab Apple but don’t let that put you off buying one! It is an upright, even slender tree that would make it a good alternative to those hackneyed upright Pear trees that everyone and their dog seems to be planting! And it
Stephen Ryan
Canna glauca
I have grown to love cannas over the years although one has to say that seeing them in beds of mixed colours with nothing to soften them can be off putting, think council bedding. These statuesque plants should be used as features amongst other things such as ornamental grasses et.al. Canna glauca could be said
Stephen Ryan
Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Middle Gully Gold’
This form of Columbine or Granny Bonnet if you prefer is one that I have selected and it now makes a telling feature in my home garden. Like all other forms of A. vulgaris it is as easy as pie to grow but is also promiscuous so that it will come truer from seed if
Stephen Ryan
Cormus domestica
You will probably know this plant or find it in books as Sorbus domestica, the Sorb or Service berry but we all need to get used to the name changes unfortunately. What ever you call it however it is a wonderful ornamental deciduous tree which is edible to boot. It is reasonably upright in habit
Stephen Ryan
Himanobambusa tranquillans ‘Shiroshima’
I truly love bamboos and this one would have to be close to the top of my admittedly long list of favourites! It grows to about 4metres tall and although classed as a runner my plant in the garden has made a largish clump with after 10 years in the ground no real attempt to
Stephen Ryan
Rubus parviflorus
The Thimbleberry is a suckering deciduous North American raspberry relative with upright thornless stems and huge soft green leaves that would have me planting it if it did nothing else. However in spring it produces large pure white flowers (strangely large for the Genus yet the name parviflorus means small flowered!). When the flowers finish
Stephen Ryan
Tetrapanax papyrifer
The Rice paper plant is hardly one of the rarest things in my nursery or my garden but I wouldn’t be without it in either place as a stunning giant foliage plant that for all its tropical look is surprisingly hardy to the cold. It can grow to 4metres tall but I usually cut it
Stephen Ryan
Montanoa leucantha var. arborescens
If you like plants that virtually erupt out of the ground then the Mexican tree daisies could be the plant for you! They grow in much the same way as tree Dahlias putting on metres of growth from ground level in a season so as to be as much as 4metres or more by flowering
Stephen Ryan