MY earliest garden memories from childhood are of lilac and all flowers and kerria. Kerria japonica is something of a Cinderella plant, relegated to a corner and forgotten about. You find it in older gardens, a suckering upright shrub, dense and twiggy, with good green stems, looking fresh and bright while leafless in winter. In spring it bursts forth with an ostentatious display of small bright yellow flowers and in the form most usually seen the blooms are double.
Old fashioned and somewhat tedious, it was often accorded wall space - unjustifiably as the plant is quite hardy. The double form was introduced from the East at the beginning of the last century by an enterprising young gardener from Kew Gardens who had collected in China, Java and the Philippines. If this was the best thing he came up with, we might wonder at such efforts being made for so little. Its true home is China and not Japan, although it has long been cultivated there.
I don't afford garden space to the kerria in its double form, but I am pleased to have the single flowered form which is not nearly so well known. Not half as gawky or lanky as the double, it makes a gentle shrub, with a charmingly simple flower, generally five petalled. Those whose only acquaintance is the double are usually taken aback on seeing the single.
I have noticed it trained on a wall and such treatment seems to work well the more slender stems do not make such a dense mass.
There is a variegated form, Kerria japonica "Variegata" and that I grow also. It makes a discreet suckering shrub under two feet high. The variegation is pleasant as the leaves are small and the markings irregular all set off nicely by the fresh green stems. A neat tip which I picked up once is to cut the whole thing down in spring, treating it as one would a herbaceous plant. The result is healthy new growth which makes a nice interlude at the front of a border. There will be few flowers and they will be late in the season, but that is no great matter.
ANOTHER neat trick which I have much admired but have not indulged in is also worth passing on. It relates to camellias I try not to write much about plants which I cannot grow, as I find it akin to a cook gleefully passing on a recipe he or she has never tried. I might experiment with camellias if I made a special acid bed or indeed if I chose to grow some in pots with the appropriate soil. In a limestone soil they just curl up and die in a very miserable way. So this tip will be useful only for those on an acid soil and it is to train the shrub as a wall plant if an appropriate situation exists.
The nice part is that camellias will grow well on a north facing wall. North walls are not exactly renowned for the variety and the exciting horticultural opportunities they provide. So bully for the gardeners with the right soil. The camellia could of course be grown as a wall shrub, a buttress of greenery, but the plants I admired were carefully and painstakingly proned and shaped almost like espalier fruit trees.
That sort of behaviour will be anathema to some, but I was impressed and I had not even gone out to be impressed. Camellias have such good foliage and such a pleasant bushy habit that a gardener might not ever think of shaping or training. In the right place the effect can be impressive and never mind those who rail against discipline and even a little discreet butchery and torture. An occasional foray in that direction can be beneficial.
A final helpful hint for those on limey soil is to enjoy a camellia in a container that way the required acid soil can be provided. The best camellia for this purpose is the semi double pink flowered `Donation', which is a hybrid. The habit is neat and upright, the foliage a delightful glossy dark green. In a pot it can be sheltered front early morning sun in late winter and early spring so the blooms remain undamaged. Give it a south or west - even a north facing position and then in summer it can be stood in a little shade which it will enjoy.