Tell me all about your Epimediums

Yeah - I didn't have as much old foliage this year. Maybe because we didn't have much snow cover early in the winter and the wind dried up the foliage and blew it away? 'Sulphureum' was liberated today from oak leaves. For some reason those yellow blooms put a smile on my face.

I did not have to remove any foliage from my sulphurums, for the first time in years!

Nice!

I always wondered why epimedium is also called barrenwort, but one look at the plant six weeks ago and a look today answers the question.

Six weeks ago the plant was very small, truly barren looking. Yet a look today changes all that. Still a few blooms, but the foliage is magnificent!

The 'Rose Queen' foliage is the most striking here with the colorful leaf margins.

UPDATE:

This spring I blew the bank on purchases of epimediums:

- Amber Queen
- Beni Yushima
- lishihchenii
- rubrum
- Cherry Hearts
- Domino
- Lilafee

Thanks for all who contributed to this thread

I think you are brilliant! Who could resist them? They are breathtaking this year. Even good old sulphurum is dazzling me with its two tone leaves

Great picture Donna! It looks like I have lots to look forward to.

Now that I think of it...might one consider epimediums as an alternative to hostas or heucheras?

I use them as an alternative to hostas, because they are around in fall and looking quite nice. They aren't as tall, but they spread more gently and are amenable in a crowd.

A great selection of epimediums, rouge.
I was just admiring my lishihchenii today, though it finished blooming long ago.
It has wonderful big textured foliage which looks great year-round.
And I think the thickness of the foliage makes it less tempting to my bunnies.
Despite the lateness of the season, I noticed a lingering bloom on my epimedium Yohiki today!
I suspect it will be the last for this year...

Hmm.... I don't know what happened to the picture of Yohiki.
Here he is...

I'm working on designing a garden for people with a splendid English garden. Completely symmetrical in a formal way. It's a little heavy on blue nepeta (there must be in excess of 60) and all of their peonies are Sarah Bernhardt or a similar pink classic one (at least 8), and lots of heuchera but they have some very neat things too, like a gorgeous white tree peony. The only big mistake is getting at least ten of the most horrible, suckering, thorny rugosa roses you can imagine. The error was compounded with a lack of water, so covered from head to toe, I am in the process of invading the thorn forest to prune them.

They have sun and shade areas, and one thing I am trying to get them to do is introduce epimediums, polygonatums and japanese painted ferns. I think most gardens can be improve with the addition of epimediums, and having grown them in both sun and shade I am recommending them highly.

This may be coming a bit late, as I haven't been on DG most of the past year. I love epimediums and have many varieties, as I have mostly part-shade to shade and a lot of my garden area is under trees where there isn't a lot of soil, but epimediums don't mind at all and don't need any particular care.
E. rubrum was my first, and is still one of my favorites, as it has more of the red edging on the leaves and for longer than most of the others (the leaves of some of the epimediums tend to change color during the season, though mostly not nearly as much as heucheras). It's also one of the most prolific, and has pretty red flowers with white centers.
Some of my other favorites are:

Warleyense, but then I love orange. It has orange and yellow flowers with no spurs.

Yubae, aka Rose Queen starts out with a brownish tint to the leaves til later in the season and has a profusion of bright pink flowers.

Yokihi, which has long spurs and rosy red flowers with white spurs and a yellow center. And mine has just reflowered a bit, which I haven't seen before.

I recommend Naylor Creek on the west coast for epimediums as they have a great selection at somewhat reasonable prices, and are very nice and knowledgeable. I checked their website, but it's past the season when they sell epimediums, so they don't have them listed now. Oh well.

Thanks perenniallyme for sharing your experiences. I have gone from 0 epimediums in my garden last year to now about 9. Already I am looking forward to seeing for the first time those early flowers next spring!

Sure thing, rouge. I must have around 10 or more now, and it's a real treat to see them all flowering - most at the same time + or -. Wish I had room for more, but I really don't - though I did squeeze in a new one just recently. I can't remember its name and haven't seen it flower yet.

Rouge, for bold foliage, it's hard to beat epimedium wushanense.
The leaves are huge and leathery with jagged edges (first picture).
For me, one of the best features is that the deer & bunnies leave it alone.
And it's an excellent grower. I have a huge clump in just a few years.
You can see it's almost dwarfing my dwarf conifers next to it (and it's only a couple years old).
Flowers profusely, but I find the flowers to be about as coarse as the foliage,
so I consider it a foliage plant (2nd picture).
It's always expensive in catalogs, but for me a rewarding investment.
The 3rd picture is the only one I could find of epimedium lishihchenii foliage.

My first 2 pics didn't go thru for some reason - here they are!
These are both epimedium wushanense.
The one posted above is epimedium lishihchenii.

Weerobin - I like the E.l. Which comes first in the spring - the flowers or the leaves?

Cindy, epimedium lishihchenii is evergreen - the leaves don't look too ragged after winter.
I frankly can't remember if it flowers before or after the new spring flush of leaves.
I'll have to pay closer attention! I'd think it'd be around the same time, but not sure.

I'll have to check if it would remain evergreen for me. I like the yellow/white flowers on that one as well as the leaves.

I was out doing 'plant rescue' (trying to rescue neglected plants from the relentless onslaughts of mother nature). I ran across an epimedium rhizomatosum which was being overwhelmed by all manor of weeds.
I rescued him and put a safe zone of mulch around him, of course.
To my surprise, he is just starting to bloom!
A couple fully open blooms and myriads of tiny buds in a tangle of bloom stalks getting ready to bloom.
Last time I checked, it's July... Crazy!
And just to demonstrate how long I've had this neglected plant,
it came from long-lost Heronswood nursery...

What a great story!

You are very, very bad!

Ach! Heronswood is no more???
Weerobin - nice rescue!

You may be interested to know that Heronswood is being revived by the Indian Tribe that purchased the property when the nursery sold out. They are making it beautiful again.

Thanks for the update, Willow. Do you think they'll go back to retail nursery?

Heronswood is now a botanical garden run by the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe. They bought it last year. They had an open house yesterday, with guest speaker Dan Hinkley who is apparently helping them restore the gardens, with lots of volunteers. On the website there is no mention yet of selling plants, but many Pacific Northwest nurseries were apparently there selling plants. When I lived nearby I used to go to the "open house" days they had a few times a year. It seemed like thousands of people would go,-they had to have police help with the traffic jams on the back roads in the middle of the woods. Everyone just wandered through the gardens and greenhouses and potted plants. They sold all kinds of interesting exotic things, and knowledgeable volunteers would answer questions.

http://www.heronswood.com/

I checked out my July-blooming epimedium again today - it's got a bunch of blooms.
Poor guy has been fending for himself in the jungle for 10 years, I'd guess.
Still pretty small and looking pretty ragged, but obviously quite a survivor.
The question is whether he'll flourish better now that I've 'rescued' him,
or whether he'd have been better off on his own. We'll see!

Weerobin, I know about that jungle thing. By this time of year the shade garden is pretty tall with weeds, tall ferns and more. Plants that need TLC are vying for attention.
Marcia

This particular epimedium ("Beni Yushima") was one of many I planted for the first time back in June and I noticed just yesterday that it has a couple of late season flowers. I hope this is a sign of things to come next spring!

I have been growing several different forms of Epimedium. There is a red margined one which is quite attractive and not too invasive, a white one which does not spread much, and a yellow one which is coarse and very invasive eventually, but slow to spread at first. I have it in the garden on a steep bank and it performs very well there, but has to be dug back when it starts to grow into areas where I grow Rhododendrons. ( It has taken over ten years to get to that invasive stage). There is also a smaller leaf yellow which is very well behaved. All of them do well in high,dry shade. arfitz