Meetings with plants: Nandina ‘Obsessed’
Bramble & Briar #124
Obsessed. It couldn’t be a better name for this particular plant; I’ve been mildly infatuated with it since we first met, although, oddly, I can’t remember quite where that was. Or even, quite where I managed to snaffle three (I think it was three) particularly handsome specimens, all in 2 litre square pots and all showing off the wonderful dusky green to deep red balayage of the foliage, with that grassy poise typical of nandina. Also known as ‘Heavenly Bamboo’, and though it’s not a bamboo at all – not even a monocot, with parallel leaf veins – it’s probably the habit of arranging itself in airy sprays that earned the genus that common name.
There are some vivid green varieties (‘Magical Lemon and Lime’ springs to mind, the name says it all), but it’s a bashful shrub, and the possibility of preventing any nandina from blushing in autumn is remote to non existent. White flowers and really good berry action over the colder months make it a truly valuable garden plant.
Which is why it’s odd that I’ve never yet planted one in the garden, always keeping it in containers, something for which ‘Obsessed’, which at a maximum height of around 70cm, is ideally suited. But there’s a thing between me and plants in pots. I can be very attentive for months on end, watering, feeding, primping. But invariably something distracts me at a crucial point and I take my eye off the ball just when my custodians are in need of my greatest attention, discovering too late that they’ve gotten themselves into a sorry state. It happened this spring when I was slow to resume watering the containers, and the nandina, to my horror, died. Or so I thought.
The flipside of my mercurial container care is that I’m loathe to give up on an ailing plant. In this case, after a few weeks of watering a collection of bald, apparently dead sticks, I was granted a reprieve. The nandina is presently leafing up nicely in a shady spot, in the company of the variegated grey leaves of Pelargonium ‘Lady Plymouth’, which is just about as pleasing a combination as you can get.
So Nandina ‘Obsessed’ lives on, perfect in a pot. Would this variety with its deep, dramatic colouration work in my garden? Maybe somewhere beneath the red acer, with the hellebores and the peony foliage. I’m going to have to take some cuttings1.
for my own use, UK Plant Breeders Rights restrict any commercial propagation
I love nandina. The flowers dry well too. Beautiful combo with the pelargonium.
Similarly a fan of Lady Plymouth - such beautiful leaves