More dry shade

Well I was up too late last night working on the blog and I got my plants confused. Too many plants...too little brain cells left.

The reineckia carnea I was writing about was actually pointed out to me by our former greenhouse manager, Cinda. I think we were talking about evergreen plants for shade and she showed me the reineckia. All the information about the reineckia was correct except the fact that reineckia is actually a late summer bloomer.

The winter bloomer I was thinking of which was featured on one of my favorite blogspots was actually sarcococca hookeriana var. humilis having much the same growing requirements. They are both evergreen and both are groundcovers. The only difference is that the reineckia is still happily growing under american hollys and the sarcococca was sacrificed to my folly by planting it in full morning sun instead of light shade. I thought I could keep them watered enough to compensate but the leaves literally were burned. I think I just pulled them out when cleaning up the garden this spring. I just recently planted another where I should have planted it before. In the same general area as the reineckia is happily living. So anyway, sarcacocca is native to the western Himalayas and wants organically rich soil. It makes a restrained slow-spreading groundcover for the shade garden. A mature clump produces suckers & reproduces along stolons, so that it will slowly spread over an area easily reaching three feet wide, though it can be kept to a more restricted area if suckers are removed and it is sheered each spring for increased compactness.

Lets add sarcococca to the list of plants for dry shade.