Shrub of the Week: Chinese Leptodermis

Shrub of the Week: Chinese Leptodermis
Hort Shorts
Authors
Jim Chatfield
Published on
August 28, 2016
{This Shrub of the Week article and its photos are from Paul Snyder of OSU's Secrest
Arboretum at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster.}
Have you ever had someone come to you looking for a particular plant, and then begin listing
all the characteristics they are looking for? “It needs to be dwarf, have lots of flowers all
summer, not be messy, and it can’t have thorns…” We have all been there, and we have all
thought “With all those requirements you can’t really grow anything but perhaps poison ivy.”
We often receive questions like this at Secrest, and if I’m honest, it can difficult even for plant
experts to find the ‘perfect plant’ given the criteria (they always have to add dwarf as a
caveat…). My goal is to give you one plant that you can recommend to people (and maybe
you’ll plant one for yourself). This is truly one plant that will add to your landscape all summer.
Leptodermis oblonga, Chinese Leptodermis, is little-known (Michael Dirr apparently doesn’t
know about it because he didn’t include it in his manual.) in the industry. Outside of Secrest and
other public gardens, I have only observed it used once in a commercial landscape.
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