In one of many lockdowns final 12 months (can’t recall which.  Who can?) I lower down an extended row of past-their-use-by-date Acacia retinodes alongside my northern boundary.  That left an enormous, deep mattress of actually crappy clay soil wherein to discover some completely new type of planting.  Nicely, new to me.

I’d give you a scheme impressed by photos in Olivier Fillipi’s sensational e book ‘Bringing the Mediterranean into your Backyard’.  the form of factor – a base layer of clipped evergreens, perhaps with a grass or two for distinction, all floated over by a light-weight cover of twisted, tortured, trunky evergreen bushes.

Someplace in that course of I used to be provided a self-layered piece of a pal’s Buddleja alternifolia.  I’ve recognized and beloved this shrub for years, however have by no means owned one.   Lastly having a spot to place one, the provide was met with an enthusistic ‘sure, please!’.

As is the way in which with layered items, what was handed over wasn’t notably promising – a leafless twig (the shrub is deciduous, in order that wasn’t overly ominous) with a thread of root wanting prefer it’d be torn off any second by the lump of soil on which it had a really tenuous grip.  It went it within the floor with the form of care you lavish on one thing that you just suspect will get no additional consideration, then ignored it.

Now about six months later it’s a super-strong wanting shrub 800mm tall and 1600mm vast, splaying out sideways with elegant, willowy branches.

Buddlejas alternifolia is the closest factor that the Buddleja genus has to a front-runner shrub.  They’re principally quick, straightforward to develop and phenomenally beneficiant in bloom. However they lack the x issue – the scourge of many a quick rising tree or shrub. 

B. alternifolia one way or the other escapes the household scourge.  Its identify derives from its alternate foliage, which can be distinct from the remainder of the household (whose leaves are all reverse), however in any other case needs to be the least fascinating and interesting factor to level out within the naming of such a phenomenal shrub. It’s a very attractive factor in bloom – as delicate and chic as any shrub you possibly can consider, largely because of its lengthy, tapering, super-slender flowerheads with which the entire shrub is fountain-draped in mid to late spring.

Its magnificence belies its true toughness.  David Glenn at Lambley nursery states that he by no means waters his specimen (which is of the silver-leafed type, Buddleja alternifolia ‘Argentea’).  I certain don’t intend watering mine.  You principally see them in gardens at about 2m x 2m, however that is usually maintained by common pruning on the time they’re deadheaded.  With out pruning they’re apparently able to getting a lot bigger.

The unlucky future of most selection shrubs is to be added to a set of selection shrubs, in a fairly and jolly mixture of one-of-this-and-one-of-that.  What I’d actually like to see is Buddleja alternifolia utilized in a planting scheme, echoing repeatedly by a much bigger thought, and even nice swathes of it, interlocking with one thing complementary in color and type.

Should get on to that.