Silk Tassel Bush Garrya elliptica

Garrya elliptica is grown for mid winter, when almost nothing else is performing. Long grey green catkins hang in curtains from the branch tips over leathery, wavy edged evergreen leaves that are grey and woolly on the reverse. Male plants carry far longer tassels than female plants, so confirm which you are getting before committing to a row. It comes from the Pacific coast of North America, and in Australian gardens it works as a wall shrub, an informal screen or a cool climate feature.

Catkins in the depth of winter

Cool temperate gardens are the target: hill country, the southern tablelands, cooler coastal districts and anywhere with a real winter. Humid subtropical summers are the wrong climate and the plant shows it, thinning out and picking up leaf spot. It is unbothered by wind and coastal salt, which is why it became a traditional wall shrub in exposed gardens, and a sheltered wall with air moving around it is still one of the better places to put it. Soil has to drain. It will not sit in ground that stays wet through winter, and a mounded bed or a raised position solves more problems than any amendment. The one real failure mode is disturbance. Garrya resents having its roots interfered with, so choose the position on the assumption you will never move it, plant it once, and mulch instead of cultivating around the base. Digging a new bed in around an established plant, or lifting and shifting it, sets it back badly and often kills it outright. In warmer districts a large container is the safer approach, provided the mix is open and the pot is never left standing in a saucer of water.

Winter interest, two ways

Camellia sinensis is the other evergreen cool climate shrub here, and the two get cross-shopped for the same walls and courtyards. The tea plant clips into a dense low hedge and wants shelter and acid soil, while Garrya is looser in habit, happier taking wind, and grown for a single mid winter event rather than year round tidiness. Neither is a plant for a humid subtropical garden. For winter colour on a larger scale in the same districts, Acacia dealbata gives you a canopy of gold at roughly the same time of year, on a tree that will not be there in thirty years. The rest of the larger stock sits in advanced trees.

Pruning after the tassels drop

Prune as soon as the catkins finish, before the new growth extends, and keep the cuts in younger wood. It does not reshoot reliably from bare old timber, so shorten stems progressively year by year rather than cutting a neglected plant back to the frame in one go. Wall trained plants need their new stems tied in each spring while they are still flexible. Feed in early spring with a balanced complete fertiliser worked lightly into the surface, then mulch over the top, taking care not to dig around the roots while you are doing it. If a plant has outgrown its position, replace it rather than trying to move it.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 140mm, at $27.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot it arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to when to plant in Australia.