SEVEN SON FLOWER

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Seven Son Flower (Heptacodium micianoides)

If your local nursery does not carry this plant or does not know how to locate a wholesale source for it, please have the nursery call The Weedpatch Gazette for more information. If you are really having a tough time, The Weedpatch Gazette will obtain the plant and sell it to you directly. I want you to try this plant!

TWG Editor: A couple of years ago, I attended a lecture at the Chicago Botanic Garden at which wholesale nurseryman Roy Klehm (Klehm Nursery; Beaver Creek Nursery) gave a talk promoting his line of plants. Near the end, he showed slides of Seven Son Flower (Heptacodium micianoides) and when he put up the slide showing how it looks when the sepals of its fragrant white flowers turn red in October, the entire audience “oooh’d” out loud. A winner was born!

I bought this small tree in August, 1997 from Timber Ridge Nursery in Elizabeth (near Galena), IL this year, and while it’s only about 2’ high, it is already performing as described. Then I sat down to create the Winter issue of The Weedpatch Gazette, and 3 of 10 designers chosen at random named Seven Son Flower as their favorite plant of 1997!

Here’s what the designers said, along with opinions from two excellent books.

“A plant that impressed me in 1997 was Seven Son Flower [Heptacodium miconioides]. This large shrub/small tree was brought from Korea by the Arnold Arboretum in Boston and is finally becoming more available. We’ve had one in the gardens for about five years, but 1997 was the first year we were able to offer it to our customers. With strong disease and insect resistant foliage, oodles of flower buds in clusters of seven that tease you the whole month of August, white jasmine-scented flowers in September, rosy calyx extensions from October through November, and shades of tan exfoliating bark all winter; well, let’s face it, Seven Sons Flower does everything but cartwheels!” —Mary Ann Leigh, owner, Timber Ridge Nursery

“A plant I used for the first time in 1997 was Seven Son Flower [Heptacodium miconioides]. The blooms in September have the fragrance of jasmine. Bright red samaras follow, which provides plenty of fall interest.” —Tyler Smith, owner, Tyler’s Landscaping, Rockford, IL

“If I had to choose a single plant that I was completely impressed by in 1997, it would be Seven Son Flower [Heptacodium miconioides]. It’s a small tree that was interesting in every season.” —Jim Osborne, Mariani Landscape (Lake Bluff, IL)

From plant authority Mike Dirr, author of Dirr’s Hardy Trees & Shrubs (Timber Press, 1997, $69.95):

“A new garden species, introduced from China by the Sino-American Botanical Expedition in 1980, this bhrub has become the horticultural rage in the Northeast, and the Arnold Arboretum has done more than any other agency to popularize the species. It is a rather handsome plant, but one that I initially was not enamored with. After observing it over several years, however, I planted one in my own garden. The habit is multi-stemmed and upright-spreading with a cloudlike canopy. The 3- to 4-in. long, dark green leaves emerge early in spring, around mid- to late-April, and persist into November, but they do not develop an appreciable fall color. The bark exfoliates to expose a light brown underbark. Pale, creamy white, fragrant flowers are borne on seven-tiered panicles from August into October. The real show occurs in October and November when the calyces (sepals) turn reddish-the effect is spectacular and long lasting. Best growth occurs in moist soils and full sun, but the species is adaptable to dry, acid soils and at least semishade. Use as an accent, in shrub borders, or in groupings. Grows 10-20 ft. high, slightly less in spread Zones (4) 5 to 8.” —Michael Dirr

The Garden Club of America’s Book, Plants that Merit Attention: Volume 2: Shrubs (Timber Press, 1997, $59.95), says:

“Synonym: H. jasminoides. Caprifoliaceae. USDA Zones 5-7. Native to Western China. Genus collected by E.H. Wilson in Hupei Province, China, in 1907. In 1916 Afred Rehder of Arnold Arboretum described the new genus, which then diappeared but was rediscovered in 1980 by the Sino-American Botanic Expedition. Transplanting: Easy, balled & burlapped or container grown. Propagation: By single-node cuttings with mist. Landscape Value: An exciting, almost unknown, rediscovered genus...Apt to be leggy; needs to be pruned or topped out to keep in bounds and to better show off interesting bark. Potential tree for urban conditions. Received Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Gold Medal (Styer Award) in 1995” —Janet Poor

LOCAL RETAIL SOURCES: Timber Ridge Nursery (Elizabeth, IL); Geimer Greenhouses, 701 E. Dundee Rd., Arlington Heights, IL (847) 259-6363.; Fertile Delta, Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL (773) 529-6701.

LOCAL WHOLESALE SOURCES: Klehm Nursery (Barrington) (847) 551-3710; Beaver Creek Nursery (Poplar Grove, IL) (815) 737-8758.

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