Aucuba japonica 'Golden King' Check with George blooming from late spring well

blooming from late spring well into fall

Clethra tomentosa

Striking as a lawn specimen or at a woodland edge

a streambank

Where other vines sprawl boldly

Aucuba japonica 'Golden King' Check with George blooming from late spring wellThere is a strange romance buried in this plant's history, and 'Golden King' sits on the male side of it. Aucuba japonica reached England in 1783 as a single female, the yellow flecked gold dust shrub that Victorians went on to plant by the thousand. Aucuba carry their sexes on separate plants, and for eighty years every aucuba in the country was a clone of that one female, waiting on the famous red berries that never came, because Japan had sealed