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The Skinny on Skimmia

© Emily Levitt

My friend Ann says she's the laziest gardener in town."The hostas have to get crispy before I drag the hose out to them," she declares. Drought tolerance is high on her list, and she was well impressed by the appearance and low maintenence of japanese skimmia after seeing it on a garden tour. In fact,she just put some in her own garden.

Now that I've researched it for her, I want some myself. Compact and tidy, skimmia only gets about four feet high. This makes it ideal for landscape uses, and for use in the mid-range of borders or beds. It sports flowers and berries, as seen in this photograph.

Male and female plants are needed for fruit to set, with berries appearing only on the ladies. Both sexes bloom in the spring, with the male flowers being larger and more dominant than those found on the female plants. One male plant is needed to pollinate every six female plants. The bigger blooms in this photo are male, the small ones female. The berries are from a previous years' set.

Soil tolerance is another reason to adopt this shrub. Acid tolerance is also on the University of Georgia's beneifts in using skimmia, yet other sites list it as lime tolerant. It must not be too picky.

The USDA Hardiness Zone is occasionally listed as high as Zone 6, through Zone 8. I'd be willing to use it as an annual in a higher zone, and see how it does in warmer climates. After all, there's a plant out there to make a liar out of anyone.

The skimmia plant is poisonous in all its' parts, but you'd have to eat a boat load of it in order to become ill.

Skimmia can draw spider mites, since they too thrive in hot, dry conditions. This is the only thing that would worry me. I had to destroy a nice parterre of dwarf euonymous when it became infested with spider mites. I couldn't eradicate the pests, so I had to pitch the planting, which is the same in my book as throwing away money, not to mention the sweat equity in the labor!

The Peter Panics at the weather bureau are already warning us to beware of another long dry summer, so skimmia may be just what you need to fill in spots where you lost things to drought last year.

But keep a miticide handy, and let me know if you need it!

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