Synod’s worth
Epimedium, or Bishop’s Hat, brings carpets of colour to semi-shaded spots, writes David Overend.
Epimedium may sound like a spiritualist with a smile on their face but this is a much more down-to-earth form which can make gardeners very happy people. To start with, they love this plant for its bright leaves, which appear early in the year (they are very colourful for a colourless spot in the garden) and they love it even more when it starts to produce lovely, orchid-like blooms in April and May.
Epimedium is also known as “Bishop’s Hat” and it’s a perennial usually grown in shady spots where it not only looks good but where it also helps to keep down weeds beneath its carpets of heart-shaped leaves.
Normally it’s a clump-forming evergreen (there are also deciduous forms) that spreads every year to eventually grow to perhaps as much as 36in in width, so it’s hardly likely to prove invasive.
This is a family of very versatile plants, just as much at home in a conventional garden bed or border as they are growing almost semi-wild on banks and slopes. They even seem to be quite content to be grown in containers.
Epimediums are fully frost hardy, although they do like some shelter from cold easterly winds. They grow best in fertile soil in moist but well-drained conditions and are ideal for semi-shaded spots.
The best month to cut back a mature specimen is in February, when old stems and leaves can be sheared back without removing new flower buds (removing foliage just before vigorous spring growth also will allow this ground-cover plant to recover from the pruning stress).
Snip off dead and damaged stems and foliage from evergreen and semi-evergreen varieties. Deciduous varieties can be cut back down to ground level.
Epimediums are best propagated by division. This is a plant that’s slow to colonise so let it develop before lifting and splitting it. Divide it in spring after flowering has finished or later in summer or early autumn, preferably on a cool, cloudy day.
One of the prettiest forms of the plant is E davidi, a deciduous perennial which grows up to 30cm in height and 45cm in width. It’s bronze-tinted, toothed foliage appears in spring and slowly turns to a light green.
Its yellow, long-spurred flowers open beneath russet-brown sepals which are carried on coral-red stems in spring. It’s a stunning plant any gardener should be proud to own.