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Yellow flowering Daphne
Most gardeners look twice when first confronted with the Yellow flowering Daphne shrub. That is because it is an oddity and apart from the flowers doesn’t resemble a Daphne at all.
This deciduous shrub produces multiple branches from its base of stout upright stems. When the leaves drop in autumn they reveal furry yellow buds atop the naked stems. These open from mid winter into lemon yellow balls of flowers. The flowers exude a delicious fragrance and a mature flowering specimen lights up the whole garden through the winter months. As the flowers fade in spring they are replaced by quite long dull green leaves. The undersides of the leaves are an attractive grayish green. In autumn they turn a lovely butter yellow before falling.
The ideal site for this shrub would be halfway up a bank with a nearby pathway so the shrub can be viewed from all angles. It really is a most beautiful shrub through all of the seasons and a very distinctive one as well. Keep pruning to a minimum as the flowers are borne on the previous years wood. It is a fairly compact rounded shrub maturing at 1.5ms.
Edgworthia papyrifera is a cousin of the common Daphne and comes from China. Its pliable stems have long been cultivated in Japan for the snow white fibres used in the manufacture of thin but very strong paper. Bare stems are impossible to break and you can have lots of fun tying them into knots.
Grow Edgworthias with Azaleas ,Rhododendrons and Camellias and under deciduous trees. They like deeply worked soil ,lots of compost and water through dry summer periods.
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