Plant: Variegata - Aucuba

Aucuba · Aucuba japonica 'Variegata'

$36.00

Size: 3 gal

Light

Full Shade

Bloom

Spring

Mature size

6 ft tall6 ft wide

More about this plant

Variegata, the true Gold Dust plant, is a slow growing broadleaf evergreen shrub with a dense rounded habit and glossy, leathery, dentate leaves boldly spotted in gold and yellow. NCSU records it at 4 to 6 feet tall and wide. It is a female form, so with a male plant nearby it carries showy red drupes under half an inch through fall and winter. Grow it in partial to deep shade in soil high in organic matter that is moist and well drained; it tolerates heavy shade, pollution and poor soil, and it burns in summer sun. Use it as a hedge, a screen, a specimen for a dark corner or a container plant.

Full Shade
Grows to 6 ft tall and 6 ft wide
Blooms in spring
Hardy in USDA zones 7-10
Evergreen foliage

Plant description

Variegata, the true Gold Dust plant, is a slow growing broadleaf evergreen shrub with a dense rounded habit and glossy, leathery, dentate leaves boldly spotted in gold and yellow. NCSU records it at 4 to 6 feet tall and wide. It is a female form, so with a male plant nearby it carries showy red drupes under half an inch through fall and winter. Grow it in partial to deep shade in soil high in organic matter that is moist and well drained; it tolerates heavy shade, pollution and poor soil, and it burns in summer sun. Use it as a hedge, a screen, a specimen for a dark corner or a container plant.

Flowers: Purple-maroon, 4 petals, 4 sepals, cross-shaped with white anthers.
Foliage: Spotted leaves; opposite, simple, elliptic-ovate to elliptic-lanceolate and dentate, in green flecked with gold, yellow and white.
Fruit: Red, ellipsoid, one-seeded, berry-like drupes to about half an inch that ripen in fall; female plants need a male pollinator to fruit.
Bark & stems: Succulent, green, glabrous and waxy stems with shield-shaped leaf scars.
Light: Deep Shade
Native range: East Asia and Japan