Skimmia
Skimmia japonica
As easy as shade shrubs get, provided it gets rainwater where the tap water runs hard and is never left to dry out.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Red
- Sunlight
- Partial to full shade — among the better shrubs for a shady bed.
- Watering
- Keep it moist, using rainwater where the tap water is hard.
- Feeding
- An ericaceous feed in spring, with a bark mulch.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- Rarely needed; a light shaping after flowering is enough.
- Mar–Apr Spring Growth
- Apr–Aug Flowering
- Aug–Dec Growing
- Jan–Mar Growing
- Plant spacing
- 3 ft 11 in
- In-row spacing
- 3 ft 11 in
- Between rows
- 4 ft 11 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
- 4–6 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 Skimmia’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.
- Scale insects Immobile brown or white bumps fixed to stems and leaf undersides, sucking sap and weakening growth. Wipe off with a damp cloth or dab with horticultural soap; watch for the sooty mold that follows.
- Phytophthora root and foot rot A waterborne rot of woody plants that kills from the roots up: the whole plant fades and wilts, and the bark at the base is stained rusty-brown beneath.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Scale insects
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Scale insects
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
Camellia, Sarcococca, Hellebores, Ferns
Green-leaved shrubs with red flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com