{"id":9247,"date":"2011-02-07T02:35:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T07:35:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-08-13T18:36:39","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T22:36:39","slug":"edgeworthia-on-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardern.co.za\/2011\/02\/edgeworthia-on-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"An Edgeworthia on the Edge. It’s Worth It."},"content":{"rendered":"
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EDGEWORTHIA CHRYSANTHA<\/s> PAPYRIFERA ‘AKEBONO’, A RARE SHRUB IS BEGINNING INTO BLOOM UNDER GLASS.<\/div>\n
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Outside, the world is encased in ice, but in the greenhouse, my sort-of, winter garden, rarely seen tender shrubs from China and South America are starting to bloom. The first of these shrubs to bloom this mid-winter is an Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘rubra’, an even more unusual strain of an Asian shrub where even the more common species is rare enough.<\/div>\n
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I first saw Edgeworthia on mid February day, not unlike today, where temperatures rose above freezeing. I was spending a Sunday walking in Tokyo when I was struck by an oddly blooming shrub, with branches all bare and woody, but with small arching branches with tubular waxy fragrant blossoms the color of heirloom chicken eggs, golden yellow and white. I was dumbstruck, for I had never seen this plant before.<\/div>\n
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Fast forward 8 years to today, in my Massachusetts green house, as I strolled around in the early morning sunlight picking some Camellia’s for my fathers 97th birthday party here at the home. I turned the corner, and there was my shrubby Edgwothia growing in a large clay tub, and the dormant buds that look like coins on fuzzy pipe cleaners, tiny buds the colors of Clementine oranges, were beginning to open. <\/div>\n