THE scents and seductions of spring parade themselves ostentatiously, bringing excitement and colour to the dull canvas. Spring bulbs and early flowering deciduous shrubs may lift hearts and spirits, but we still need a background of greenery to add structure to the garden. One friend of winter who has served such purpose with distinction, Fatsia japonica, now begins to show signs of fatigue in my garden. Buffeting from frosts, snow and wind has left many leaves blotched and spotted and the shrub cries out for a bit of manicuring to free it from the damaged foliages and then it will be in business once more.
To do its best, the Fatsia japonica should be sheltered from the worst winds and I note numerous specimens much healthier and happier than mine in suburban and courtyard gardens. This is a plant for all year, not just the bare months - but it looks particularly splendid when the garden has a lean and naked appearance. Good greenery then comes into season and the background plants which might be conveniently ignored while an array of flowers is available are called on to perform and shine.
It is so easy when first making a garden to furnish it only with plants of spring and summer, thinking of blossom and scent and scenes of sunshine, ignoring the need for permanent structural plants which help provide a framework all year round.
Stripped of leaves - deciduous leaves - the framework shows twiggy silhouettes of bare shrubs and trees, a sight which can provide its own beauty and charm. In some cases, bark or stem may provide particularly pleasing characteristics, the clean, almost jade-like green of the stems of the ordinary Pheasant's Bush Leycesteria formosa or the peeling papery cinnamon-coloured bark of Acer griseum, for instance. All very well, but the majority of deciduous shrubs and garden trees can become monotonous enough once the novelty has passed.
So we welcome the evergreen, and what a choice evergreen the Fatsia is. Sometimes it is grown indoors, in offices or banks where it is bandied about and consequently looked on with disparagement. While it is easy enough to grow indoors it can never attain its potential as a prisoner and so deserves the freedom of the garden.
Outside it can shine and can make a wide spreading shrub up to 15 feet high and as much across. However, do not be alarmed by such proportions, it can with occasional judicious pruning be kept at under half that size. Where there is space, it looks very well and makes a bold architectural statement with its spreading and bending branches supporting large sculptured leaves which can be up to almost a foot and a half wide. Meeting such a mass of large leaves indoors in winter can be startling for those who only know the plant as a dwarf in a pot.
The leaves are the largest of any hardy evergreen, a good healthy mid green, palmate and deeply lobed. There are usually nine lobes and the prominent ribs are lime green as are the stems. The brown branches are scarred where old leaves have fallen off. In October and November large branching panicles of creamy white flowers are produced, reminiscent of greatly enlarged flowers on ivy. The globular flower heads are each two inches or more in diameter. Later these turn to black pea-like seed heads.
In flower it can be quite startling, especially as it makes its great display when most other plants are in decline. But in or out of flower Fatsia japonica is a most handsome thing. As the name implies it comes from Japan and was first introduced in the West in 1838. There is, as you might expect, a variegated version, but that to my mind is inferior as a garden feature. It lacks the bold definition and simple drama of the plain green form.
Fatsia had at some time a bit of a fling with an Irish ivy, Hedera helix `Hibernica'. The Irish ivy is an excellent ground cover rather than a climbing form and the off-spring of this strange intergeneric union is x Fatshedera lizei. It is evergreen, a mid to pale green, unlike the darker green of the ivy, and the leathery shiny leaves are larger and stronger than those of the ivy. As a foliage plant it rates highly and makes a useful ever- green in shade. Unlike the Fatsia it does not form a shrub but needs support if it is to get up off the ground. The long stems make a very pleasant feature, creeping along ferns in a shady corner or with some support covering a wall. As the plant does not cling, it will need tying in regularly if its stiff branches are not to snap and break off. Altogether it can be an elegant curiosity.