If you don’t know it already let me introduce you to Garrya elliptica ‘James Roof’ pictured here.
You may very well be aware of this handsome shrub with its long catkins that look for all the world as though they have been fashioned out of lustrous silk in a most delicate shade of green with, when caught in the light, a sheen of silver. Little wonder then that its common English name is the ‘silk tassel tree’. All the same I doubt whether you own it as it is rare in our gardens. I have admired this garrya for years but it still doesn’t decorate the west wall of Red House where it would be very much at home.
Why isn’t it more widely grown I wonder and why hasn’t it found a place in my garden? I should go searching now for although those long catkins will persist into March this is the time to see them at their best and, incidentally, to check that the garrya I buy is labelled ‘James Roof’. It is named after the Director of a Californian botanic garden and undoubtedly the handsomest cultivar with catkins that reach 20 cm 8 inches in length. For the…
