Take a Fresh Look at Skimmias

Skimmias have it all – colourful buds, scented flowers, and huge berries if you plant a male variety. They’re perfect for small gardens and pots,

- Graham Rice

A NEAT evergreen shrub with scented spring flowers and scarlet berries that often last all through the winter to overlap with the next crop of flowers – sounds too good to be true!

And when you add in the fact that some varieties also have winter flower buds so colourful that you’d be happy if they never opened at all, it’s a mystery that skimmias are not that widely planted. Perhaps it’s because plants can be male or female and of course only female varieties produce berries although males have a stronger scent.

But why do we care about what’s in fashion and what’s not? And, anyway, perhaps the new variegated variety will change all that. But a good plant is a good plant and skimmias are amongst the best of all shrubs for small gardens. Even at their most mature these glossy leaved evergreens, with their aromatic foliage, reach little more than 6ft (2m) – 3ft (1m), is much more likely.

The buds start colouring in October, when the old foliage turns bright yellow and adds to the display. At this time of year, the deep red buds of Skimmia japonica ‘Rubella’ or the bronzed buds of ‘Bronze Knight’ are especially striking; even the creamy buds of other varieties can make an impact.

The recently introduced ‘Magic Marlot’ adds variegated foliage to the red winter buds and is especially impressive in containers. If this doesn’t make you look afresh at skimmias, nothing will.