Disanthus
Disanthus cercidifolius
October flowers are unusual enough on their own; the price is acid soil, steady moisture, and cover from cold wind.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Blue-green · Purple and burgundy
- Sunlight
- Partial shade or dappled sun, sheltered from cold winds.
- Watering
- Keep the soil consistently moist, and mulch to hold it there.
- Feeding
- An ericaceous feed in spring, and no lime.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- October
- Pruning
- Very little; take out dead wood in late winter.
- Apr–Oct Bud Break
- Oct–Nov Flowering
- Nov–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Apr Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 8 ft 2 in
- In-row spacing
- 8 ft 2 in
- Between rows
- 10 ft 3 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody and fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 12–16 ft across, about 1.5–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A shallow woody framework with the fine feeding roots in the leaf litter above it. Those feeders are mostly under the outer half of the canopy rather than against the stem, which is where water and feed should go.
The habit is Disanthus’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
Japanese Maples, Rhododendrons, Ferns, Enkianthus
Blue-green-leaved shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com