Gadenin日本語Get the appWhat this plant actually is
Sarcandra glabra is a small evergreen shrub, usually 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm) tall and about as wide, with glossy, sharply toothed dark green leaves held in pairs up slender green canes. It carries no showy flower at all: the flowers are petal-less green knobs set in short spikes at the shoot tips, easily missed, and the whole ornamental payoff comes afterwards as clusters of round scarlet berries that ripen in autumn and hold on through winter against the evergreen foliage.
It belongs to an old, primitive family of shade plants and it behaves like one. In the wild it grows on the floor of moist evergreen forest, in leaf litter, in light so dim that most garden shrubs would go bare-legged and die. That single fact explains everything about how it wants to be treated: it is not a border shrub that tolerates some shade, it is a shade plant that tolerates no sun.
Growers use it as low evergreen structure at the front of a shaded planting, in the dark strip along a north-facing wall, at the foot of established trees where the canopy is high enough to let rain through, and very commonly in a pot on a shaded porch where the berries can be seen at close range and the plant can be carried under cover for the winter.
The four conditions that decide success
Almost every failed sarcandra fails on one of four counts, and all four are properties of the position rather than of the care given afterwards. Get them right and the plant is close to maintenance-free; get one wrong and no amount of watering or feeding will compensate.
| Condition | What it wants | What goes wrong if you get it wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Light | Full to part shade, bright but with no direct sun on the leaves | Leaves bleach to pale yellow-green, then scorch brown from the tips |
| Wind | Sheltered on all sides, especially from dry winter wind | Leaf margins brown and crisp, berries shrivel and drop early |
| Soil | Humus-rich, free-draining but never dry, mildly acid to neutral | Growth stalls, lower leaves yellow and fall, plant thins out |
| Winter cold | Mild winters only, roughly down to 20F (minus 7C) with shelter | Canes blacken from the tip down, or the whole plant is lost |
Ground or pot: making the hardiness decision first
This is the one decision to make before you dig a hole, because reversing it later means lifting an established plant. Sarcandra is only reliably hardy where winters are mild. In a garden that regularly drops below about 20F (minus 7C), or where hard freezes arrive with wind, a plant in open ground will be cut back or killed no matter how good the summer position is.
Where winters stay above that, plant it out and mulch it. Where they do not, grow it in a container and move it. A pot of 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 cm) diameter holds a mature plant comfortably, stays light enough to shift, and lets you park the plant in deep shade all summer and then carry it into an unheated porch, a cold greenhouse or a bright sheltered garage before the first hard frost. Plants overwintered this way come out in spring with the berries still attached.
A halfway case is worth knowing. In a marginal climate you can plant in the ground against a sheltered wall, accept that a bad winter will burn the canes back, and rely on the plant's habit of renewing itself from the base. It will usually reshoot from ground level in spring, but it will not carry berries that year, so the display is only as reliable as the winters.
Preparing the ground and planting
Sarcandra will not build a root system in bare mineral soil. Its natural rooting medium is leaf litter over damp forest floor, and the soil preparation is an attempt to imitate that: high in organic matter, open enough that water moves through, and never allowed to bake dry at the surface.
- Improve a wide area, not just the hole Fork a 3 inch (8 cm) layer of leaf mold or well-rotted compost into the top 8 inches (20 cm) of soil over an area at least 3 feet (90 cm) across. The feeding roots run shallow and sideways, so improving only the planting hole leaves them in unimproved ground within a year.
- Dig the hole twice as wide as the rootball Keep it the same depth as the rootball and no deeper. On heavy ground, set the plant so the top of the rootball sits about half an inch (1 cm) proud of the surrounding soil, which stops water sitting against the crown.
- Tease out the surface roots Gently loosen any roots circling the outside of the rootball with your fingers so they run outward into the new soil. Do not shake the rootball apart; this plant resents having its fine roots stripped bare.
- Backfill, firm lightly and water in Refill with the improved soil, press it down with your hands rather than your heel, and water thoroughly enough to soak the whole rootball and the ground around it. Air pockets under the rootball are a common cause of first-season die-back.
- Mulch, keeping it clear of the stems Spread 2 inches (5 cm) of leaf mold or bark over the root area, pulled back an inch (2.5 cm) from the canes. The mulch is not decoration here. It is what keeps the surface roots damp and cool through the first summer.
- Space multiple plants 20 to 24 inches apart Set plants 20 to 24 inches (50 to 60 cm) apart if you want them to knit into a continuous low evergreen band. Closer than that and the inner canes lose light and go bare at the base.
Plant in spring once the worst cold has passed, or in early autumn while the soil is still warm enough to root into. Avoid planting in midsummer heat; a new rootball in dry warm soil is the hardest combination this plant can be asked to handle.
Settling in through the first year
For the first full growing season treat a newly planted sarcandra as something that cannot yet look after itself. Water it thoroughly once a week in dry weather, more often in a container, and check under the mulch with a finger rather than judging from the surface. The rootball can be bone dry while the mulch above it looks damp.
Expect very little visible growth in the first year. This plant puts its first season into roots and may extend its canes only 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 cm). That is normal and is not a sign that it needs feeding. A first-year plant that is pushed with fertilizer produces soft canes that burn in the first cold wind.
Note the date you planted and exactly where each plant sits, particularly in a shaded bed where an evergreen 2 feet tall disappears against the background. Note too how much light the position actually gets through the day, because the shade under a deciduous canopy in high summer is a very different thing from the same spot in early spring before the leaves come out.