Enkianthus
Enkianthus perulatus
Yellows and sulks on limy ground; on acid soil kept damp it needs next to no attention.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- White
- Sunlight
- Partial shade suits it best — morning sun, afternoon shade.
- Watering
- Keep it moist; drought tells on it quickly, so mulch to hold the moisture.
- Feeding
- An ericaceous feed in spring, and nothing lime-based ever.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- Very little — take out dead or crossing branches after flowering.
- Mar–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–Jul Flowering
- Jul–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 6 ft 7 in
- In-row spacing
- 6 ft 7 in
- Between rows
- 8 ft 2 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- A fine surface mat, and nothing below it
- Working depth
- 4–12 in
- Can reach
- 18 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 6.5–10 ft across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 16 in of soil
Hair-fine roots in a shallow felt, with no deep anchor to fall back on. It cannot chase water, so it is the first casualty of a drought and the first thing killed by a hoe. Mulch it, never cultivate around it, and never let it go dry in its first two summers.
The habit is Enkianthus’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.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Vine weevil
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Frogs & toads AnuraHunts Vine weevil
A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.
- Ground beetle CarabidaeHunts Vine weevil
Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.
- Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeusHunts Vine weevil
A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.
Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Camellias, Pieris, Japanese Maples
Green-leaved shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com