Using Heptacodium in the Garden

Dave and Wayne Mezitt take a look at a gorgeous but little-known shrub whose beauty grows with the passing of its flowers.

This member of the honeysuckle family is better known in North America, where people sometimes call it Crape Myrtle of the North or Seven Son flower.




Hepta means seven and refers to the number of scented white flowers that grow on each fork of the panicles at the ends of its branches. Butterflies love heptacodium almost as much as buddleja. There are good reasons for growing this shrub, particularly in autumn and winter.

• It is very showy: the flowers fall with the first frosts but their calyxes remain, turning pink before darkening to burgundy.
• Sometimes it produces scarlet berries too, like those of a honeysuckle, in a display that can last for weeks. Then, in winter, the bark of older plants is textured grey, while the newer, smaller branches are the darkest lacquer-red.
• Even out of its season, in spring and early summer, heptacodium has leaves that are interesting enough to rate a second look. They are often glossy and dark with deeply marked veins, and are elegantly arranged in drooping pairs, at right angles until they reach the end of the stem when they part at 45 degrees instead.

Heptacodium is an enormously stylish plant and the reason it is not better known is that it has been available in the UK only for a couple of decades. It was introduced to North America early last century then disappeared, until it was re-discovered in China by the Arnold Arboretum. One of them was planted at Powys Castle, which is a National Trust property - it's still there, just inside the gate.

Growing tips
Heptacodium is a fast grower and seems to be very easy. Optimum conditions, it is suggested, are moist, acid woodland soil - not too shady - but this shrub is not as fussy as we may have been led to believe. If it grows too large and unmanageable careful shaping can reduce it, and it is probably wise to remove twiggy growth from low down so the bush does not become too wide.

Propagation
It does make suckers, which can be propagated. Heptacodium will also root from hardwood cuttings in autumn. You can even grow it from seed, as long as you're not in a hurry.

Companion Planting
Plant spring-flowering bulbs such as erythronium at the feet of your heptacodium to provide interest at the time of year when the shrub is not the main focus. Hemerocallis leaves provide a piercing early green presence and if you choose the classier H. lilioasphodelus, which also comes from China, the group will have an oriental delicacy that coarser flowers might spoil.