Neillia Sinensis. I had this shrub at my old house and have always regretted leaving it behind. When I bought it at a specialty nursery I asked the mature, quintessential British gardener looking saleslady what it was and she leaned her head down a little, peered/glared over her glasses at me, and said, "it's a very choice shrub." I almost felt guilty for buying it as I was a gardening newbie and wasn't sure I was worthy of such a 'choice' plant but I did and it was indeed very pretty. I'm very sad that I have never been able to find another one as I would plant one in my new garden if I could. Here is a link that might be useful: Neillia Sinensis

Cuz people are simple minded morons. After a few springs in a local nursery "selling" trees, ie, answering questions people had about the differences between different types, I can tell you people in general just have no clue. Or they read a couple of pages online and think they are experts. In general, i'd say more people like maples than not...actually, i'd say more people are unaware that any other tree exists. We want fall color they'd say, so we want a maple. And when i'd be so crass to suggest that trees other than maple have fall color i'd either be ignored or looked at as though i'd just sprouted a second head. I came to the conclusion there's a romantic notion most people have that is deeply associated with maples over nearly all other trees. It also exists with birch, esp. paper. Just observations. Valid for no one but myself. And since I only have room for one person in my head at this time, myself is the only person whose opinion I care about. Also...maples are one of the few trees that couples can compromise on. Don't like oaks, they have acorns. Magnolias ate pretty, but such a mess. Can't say the name of elm cuz no one thinks the tree still exists. Catalpa? Yikes...the size of those leaves, all that mess... Maples have decent to excellent fall color, seeds that at least don't cause the mower to bounce, reasonably fast establishment and speed of growth. And the vast majority of people like nothing more than what others like...why else would we be so enamored of most popular lists?

Mmm, autumn always seems like the start of the gardeners year - new bulbs, lots of pruning, cuttings for overwintering, harvest, ladling on compost and planting the new bare root fruits, roses and shrubs. After a truly bizarre rainless summer, the allotment has turned sere and brown much earlier than usual. Rudbeckias, dahlias and heleniums and asters had an attenuated show - I always struggle with these prairie type beauties on my sandy soil but one must have them. This year, not even emergency hosing was going to prolong the luminous late summer show of golds, bronzes and purples so I turned my face to the gravel garden which never fails to thrive. Melissa, how I love spanish broom - yep, Spartium junceum can be a thug but what a gorgeous fragrant and elegant one. They twist and bend, making fantastically gnarly shapes and grow huge and fat in East Anglia. Cytisus also grows to shocking tree size, as does Tamarix. Desperate savage pruning has been done. even though the shrubs in question are less than 6 years old, they are eating the shed. A glorious stipa gigantea, planted so carefully to filter the low evening sun, has been overshadowed one one side and totally mugged by a giant acanthus on the other. In truth, the entire gravel garden has to be redone, lifting the remnants of the old membrane (which utterly failed to prevent the millions of verbena, centranthus, ox-eye daisies, althea and eryngiums from seeding with total abandon) and replacing plants which should never have been placed there (legion - Dieramas, Schizostylus, echinaceas - embarrassing how clueless I was to plant these moisture lovers in gravel!!!)Then there are the plants which clearly love it but are far too keen - helianthemums, nepetas, salvias, hebes - small cushions are ground swallowing mounds. Apart from lots of lavender - I have hedges of L Hidcote - the deepest blue, I do not have as many silver plants as I would like. A colony of pulsatilla does well with summer silky seedheads. Santolina and a lone artemisia (Powis Castle - another huge thing). Would like to try astelia and also celmisias. A plant grown much by Ingrid, and a revelation to me, was Limonium - violetta, I have and it looks terrific with eryngiums and stipa tenuissima. Stachys or Phlomis have, so far, failed to touch my heart and I have done verbascums to death. Still throwing out flowers is the modest Zauschneria, looking good with the last of the escholzias, Salvia greggii and microphylla are flowering profusely and unstoppable. Also, pushing out another cycle of flowers - a lovelu silver leafed mound of erodium chrysantha (might be good for you, Melissa, it is a lovely thing). However, much of this is happening out of my sight since I am woefully stuck at home in a kitchen which resembles Entebbe. A simple flooring job turned into armageddon - the massively heavy cast-iron and enamel sink is upside down on the sofa, the old washing machine has been drug to the tip and a new (to me) one has arrived - although the sink issue means it is still in the middle of the kitchen. Am running out of knickers and socks - may have to be a slut and turn them inside out since the whole water system is now only usable with a lot of fiddling about with stopcocks. In a moment of frenzy, I thought we may as well go the whole way and ripped off great swathes of old painted wallpaper - which of course, came off really easily....on one wall - the rest seems as though it was cemented in position. The ingrates (offspring) have absented themselves for large amounts of time yet still manage to materialise at sensitive (shouty, sweary) moments and chip in with ludicrous suggestions (we could put speakers in the new sink cupboards, why don't we have an indoor hammock?)Estimates of finishing time have gone from 'around a week' to 'in time for Christmas'. We are eating a lot of 'bread based snacks' - although the rate of jam consumption is worrying as I was definately slack this year, using the virusey raspberries as an excuse to cut down on all the 'earth mother' nonsense I had somehow got myself into(what was I thinking?) May be forced onto chocolate spread - sweetheart can have marmalade (shudder). Even so, it has been a spectacular tomato year (no rain - no blight)- have had kilos and kilos from 40 plants. I now have wrists of iron from poking hundreds of tomatoes through a sieve. The first bareroots will be arriving soon so I will have every reason to flee the kitchen chaos.

Mad gallica and Bill, the last time I tested my soil was about 10 years ago and it was 6.0 at that time. I've already decided to do another soil test this year. We'll see if that has anything to do with it. Our neighbor across the street has a great Rhododendron in front of his house that is huge and blooms wonderfully, and he does absolutely nothing to that shrub. So, I'm not sure what the difference is. I have neighbors with five mature Silver Maples within 5 to 15 feet of my lot line on two sides and another neighbor with a London Plane, a White Pine and 7 Spruce trees within 5 to 10 feet of my lot line on another side. And I have a small 1/4 acre lot. We make our own compost and add it every year and spread a lot of bark mulch too, save neighbors leaves with our own and chop them up and mulch with those, use the sprinklers in dry spells. I just think the surrounding trees are sucking the moisture and the nutrients out of the soil. But, maybe the PH could be part of it. The azaleas that I've had the longest have grown and bloom every year and are in the front. My kids gave me 'Girard's Fuchsia' azaleas and a 'Nova Zembla' Rhody for Mother's day the last few years and I planted those in the back in the dripline of the Maples. They did bloom the first year, but they are looking like the leaves are sparse and not as vigorous. The Rhody lost foliage and has a number of bare stems. It has new growth around the base, though. They're just not thriving the way they should. Thanks for mentioning the PH....good idea.