Consider Spring-Flowering Epimediums

I came to know Epimediums rather recently in the 25 years that I’ve been gardening. The two kinds I have in my garden are shade-loving and evergreen, and any carefree plant that can bring joy twelve months of the year gets my vote.

I don’t remember how I found out about Karen Perkins, the owner of the now-closed Garden Vision Epimediums nursery. But it was early days of the pandemic, and I ordered the Epimediums online and arranged for in-person pick-up outside her home in rural central Massachusetts. It was not actually an “in-person” pickup. We agreed to a date and time for me to come. Then on one of those impossibly beautiful early spring days my husband and I drove to her home and claimed our plants that were set out on a small table under an umbrella in the front yard. I could see rock ledge on the side of her shady garden where her nursery plants were growing. What an ideal place to grow these plants. I couldn’t help but wish to tour her garden. She grew about 170 different varieties.

The plants looked delicate and very small in their 2½” square pots. I got two of two kinds. Epimedium pinnatum ssp. colchicum ‘Thunderbolt’  was discovered in the Republic of Georgia. It has yellow flowers with leaves that turn mahogany in the cold months. It is drought tolerant, a little less than a foot tall, and spreads by rhizomes. My tiny plants have bulked up and gently spread in a harsh environment on the north side of the house under a juniper tree. They get no sun in the winter and take the brunt of the north wind. Real troopers.

The other kind is called Epimedium ‘Pink Champagne’ and is a taller, clump-forming plant. The pink flowers grow above their mottled, arrow-shaped leaves. Karen says that this variety, a hybrid by plantsman Darrell Probst, is her favorite. These plants are happy in a rather sunny spot next to an azalea. In spring I cut back the old leaves to show the new ones. That’s the extent of care.

Epimediums play nicely with other woodland plants, such as hellebores, hostas, tiarellas, trilliums and hepaticas. Because they have evergreen leaves–unlike some spring ephemerals such as bleeding hearts or bloodroot--you know where they are in the garden and can easily place new plants nearby without disturbing them. And in the early spring when you are going through the beds for a tidy-up of the battered hellebore leaves you can trim the Epimediums at the same time. They say that Epimediums love dry shade. It is true that many of them will successfully grow on dry ground, but only once well-established. It is best to water Epimediums regularly the first year that they have been planted to be sure that their roots get moisture.

Epimediums are also called barrenworts and bishop’s hat. They are in the barberry family and are native to China, Japan, and Korea. Some varieties have fun names like ‘Ninja Stars.’ I’m thinking that all are worthy of garden space.

Note: Fleischer tends her flower gardens in the Edgewood neighborhood of Cranston whenever the weather lets her.