It did not take a lot of thought to choose my Plant of the Month for January. This is also a tale of a plant redeemed because way back in the day: this plant was an 'Irritating Plant of the Month'; a feature that has lapsed recently. Maybe I am focussing more on the positive these days....
I spend most of the year not noticing this shrub at all and I have no guilt over this, it is meant to do its thing in Winter and I don't expect much more from it. When I first planted it I used to prune it down quite hard in the Spring trying to encourage its red-stemmed lovely growth. This was a mistake. The plant had not had enough time to settle in and so it just set it back quite hard. So I have not pruned it for some years now and it is starting to look like a reasonable plant now. I am going to give it a prune this year and see how it fares.
It can grow to be about 2m tall, the one in my garden is around 30-40 cm tall, so I am going to suggest it is either slow growing or hates where it is in my garden (it could well be the latter). Mine is planted at the top of the garden fairly close to the horse chestnut tree. This part of the garden gets very dry in the Summer and maybe it is too dry for this plant which does prefer not to be totally dry but also not totally wet either. They are fairly bullet-proof and very hardy.
Apparently they do flower. I don't think I have ever seen this one flower but then I am not sure I have looked. If you prune them then you will probably lose the next year's flowers but as said, this one has not been pruned for some time.
Anyway, its an excellent plant and worthy of its moment in the spotlight.
More Plants of the Month can be found
here.
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