Plant: Edgeworthia

Plant description

Paperbush is a rounded deciduous shrub 4 to 6 feet tall and wide, grown for dense pendant umbels of tiny, highly fragrant tubular yellow to creamy white flowers that open from silvery silky buds in midwinter. The narrow leaves are green above and gray green below with silvery veins and turn yellow before falling, and the flexible candelabra like stems with their three pronged branching carry the plant through winter. Give it afternoon shade, well drained soil high in organic matter and occasional summer water. It has no significant pest or disease problems and works as a winter interest specimen, a border shrub or a container plant near a walk where the fragrance is noticed.

Flowers

Tiny fragrant tubular flowers with colourful sepals and no petals, packed into dense pendant umbels that open from plump silvery buds covered in silky white hairs in midwinter.

Foliage

Narrow lanceolate to oblong leaves 3 to 6 inches long, green above and gray green below with silvery white veins, turning yellow in fall.

Fruit

Inconspicuous dry drupes.

Bark & stems

Flexible, almost rubbery candelabra like stems whose three pronged branching is unique among commonly cultivated shrubs, marked with prominent leaf scars.

Light

Morning Sun

Pruning

Occasional watering may be necessary during hot, dry summer spells; the stems come through sleet, snow and ice undamaged.

Native range

China and the Himalayas

Plant details