Epimedium - why is it so under-rated?

There are some garden plants that simply everyone has in their garden...what you might call the "usual suspects" which may sound a bit disparaging, but actually it's a compliment: it means they thrive in that particular area, are easy to grow, don't suffer from excessive pests and diseases, and are pleasing to the eye.

Then there are some which are quite rare, but usually for good reason, ie they're difficult to grow.

And then we have the oddities: plants which are fully hardy, easy to grow, lovely, but which - for some reason - are not terribly popular.

In the herbaceous perennial department, that would be Epimedium: I pronounce it exactly as it looks, ie Eppy-medium.  It is a low-growing, slowly-spreading perennial, with interesting heart-shaped semi-evergreen leaves through the summer, and beautiful little flowers in late spring.

Here's my own one, right: squeezed into what I call the Narrow Border. This photo was taken in May of last year, and as you can see, it's a nice neat mound of heart-shaped leaves, fresh and green.

OK, not heart-stoppingly gorgeous, but perfectly acceptable, and very well behaved.

At this time of year - March - the leaves  need to be cut back, hard, because the flowers are forming.

 

Now, I think that this might be at the root of the problem for this plant, because the leaves don't go brown, which would indicate that they have served their purpose and can be taken off and given a decent burial in the compost heap.

Instead, they take on these interesting shades of coppery/bronze.

So interesting, in fact, that people don't realise that it's time to remove them.

Why this urge to remove them, then? I hear you asking.

The reason is that the flowers of this plant are a bit on the elusive side: their stems are just a wee bit shorter than the wiry stems of these old leaves. 

So if you never remove these old leaves, you may well not realise that it's a flowering plant at all!

In fact, you have to choose between foliage and flowers.... here's mine, again, in my own tiny garden:
 

I took off all the leaves, cutting their stems right down to the ground.

This left it looking rather sad and bare, but a fortnight later, you can see there are now a mass of tiny yellow flowers.

But no leaves.

New leaves appear in no time, though: here's the same plant, another fortnight later:

 

So there you have it, Epimedium - rather like Happy Medium, I always think - is a neat, interesting little plant, which will spread to form tidy mounds, without swamping the bed or taking over the garden.

But you do need to apply a firm hand, with the secateurs, in mid to late winter, otherwise you won't be able to see the flowers when they appear, as they will be lower than the canopy of leaves.

And that, I suspect, is why so few people have this plant in their garden!

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