You probably are not familiar with this early spring bloom...I surely wasn't until horticulturist Drew Asbury at Hillwood Museum & Gardens asked me to write a brief profile about it. It's Edgeworthia chrysantha, commonly called paperbush, a suckering shrub that's a member of the daphne family.
Anyway, the blooms appear on naked stems for six to eight weeks in late winter or very early spring, they open in succession, and they are extremely fragrant. HIllwood has two of them.
When the flowers fade, the bluish-green foliage appears on stems so flexible they can be tied in a knot. Paperbush is native to China and Japan, and the stems are used to make high-quality paper and even Japanese banknotes. Although most cultivars have creamy yellow blooms, a few do have reddish flowers, including 'Red Dragon' and 'Rubra'. The plant is fairly new to the US nursery trade, so you may have to hunt around for it. But if you want something unusual, this plant might be the one.
Hillwood has lots of winter-blooming jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum), one of my all-time favorites, especially when it's cascading over a wall. The tiny flowers brighten the winter skies and are lovely and mildly fragrant. The rest of the year, the tiny foliage on squarish green stems is simply stunning.
And the big camellia show at Hillwood is just getting started. You'll see different ones in bloom almost every week for several weeks to come. Do pay a visit if you're in the Washington DC area.
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