Fatsia Japonica

Fatsia japonica has so many star qualities that it is not surprising that it holds the RHS Award of Garden Merit. It is evergreen, remaining handsome year round, and its huge glossy leaves impart a bold and exotic look to a tropical bed. It is valuable too as a landscaping plant for very shady sites, as well as windy seaside ones. Not many plants are ornamental in so many situations.

The flowers are secondary to the foliage, but this year many are appearing in their large white panicles on the old specimen by the path above the Long Border, towards the corner where it turns parallel with Botanical Road. The Tree Registrar of the British Isles has noted this as a county champion tree!

Native to Japan and South Korea (‘Fatsia’ is an approximation to the Japanese for ‘eight’, the leaf having seven to nine lobes), the plant was introduced to the west in 1838 by the German doctor to the Governor of the Dutch East India Company, Philip von Siebold.