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Arum italicum 'Pictum'

© Marge Talt

Arum italicum 'Pictum' Fresh Foliage For Late Fall

Arum italicum 'Pictum'" HSPACE=5 VSPACE=5 HEIGHT=181 WIDTH=258 ALIGN=LEFT>When the weather is chilly, wet and dreary and leaves are covering the ground instead of tree branches, fresh foliage is hard to find. In my USDA zone 7 garden, there are still some perennials that haven't gone to sleep for the winter. One, in fact, starts new growth in October and makes its foliage display throughout the winter.

AROID-L is a moderated email list, free of charge, for anyone interested in aroids (members of the family Araceae). To subscribe, send this email message via Bitnet or Internet to: listproc@mobot.org subscribe aroid-l "Your Name"(all on one line) where "Your Name" is replaced by your first name, lastname, and affiliation (if any).

Arum italicum 'Pictum' is hardy from USDA zones six to ten. According to members of AROID-L, they have been grown successfully in USDA zone 5b, St. Louis, Missouri. This arum is one of the aristocrats of all foliage plants. In the fall, they push their tightly rolled leaves up through the leaf litter and plant debris...always a welcome sight. Paired with evergreen ferns, they help give the garden a furnished feeling. They are perfect for the shady garden. Give them a good organic soil that stays moist. They are not lovers of dry places.

The foliage is lovely all winter. It will go limp after severe frosts and snow cover. I have had some permanently bent to the ground from heavy snow and ice, but most spring back up once the snow melts.

The leaves come in different sizes in the same clump. Some are small and some are quite large. This may be because the tubers have increased and some of the younger tubers throw up smaller leaves. It takes young tubers many years to grow large enough to produce large, well-marked leaves.

Arum italicum 'Pictum - Flower'" HSPACE=5 VSPACE=5 HEIGHT=304 WIDTH=213 ALIGN=LEFT> In May, the translucent flowers appear. They're hard to see in a big clump of foliage and sparsely produced. I really think the weather has something to do with flower production as my plants seem to have more flowers and set seed more reliably in the year following a wet year than a dry one.

(Note: The spotted leaves in this photo belong to Pulmonaria s. 'Mrs. Moon", not A. i. 'Pictum'.)

Everything disappears by the end of June or early July. In September, stalks of berries appear, slowly turning from green to bright orange-red.

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