The picture below is of the cast iron plants that followed me to my car last September after the Master Gardener Plant exchange. The day of the plant exchange, when all kinds of plants arrived from the college's horticulture program, I googled this plant several times. Thankfully, its name was on the stick in the pot to make it easy for me to find. Aspidistra elatior. Sounds elegant in Latin. Anyway, once I got them home, I had to look the information up again. Since I looked it up more than 3 times, I thought that I would share. (This is because I tend to actually remember something if I write it down.)
I hit the usual sites, GardeningKnowHow and HGTV.com, plus I spent a little time looking at the pictures on the sites that sell plants. Most of the information tells about the best place for the plant to reside as a houseplant as that's where most people put them. As my house is a bit overcrowded with indoor plants, and I wanted them for outdoor use anyway, that's what I will focus on.
The cast iron plant is believed to be native to China, but is also native to Japan, and is a member of the lily family. It is a perennial that is slow growing and spreads easily. Because of this, it is commonly used as a ground cover, especially in hard to grow areas and under trees. (Here's the part I like.....) It can survive extreme conditions like cold winters and hot dry summers, although it does like regular, even watering during the dry spells. As with most plants, organic soil and annual fertilizing with general purpose fertilizer in the spring is appreciated. The plant can grow to 2-3 feet in height, and that's what this one seems to plan on. There are variegated varieties and dwarf varieties and hybrids that are with darker leaves. They prefer indirect light, which make them ideal houseplants, so my plan is for them to take up residence in my shady garden area under the canopy of 2 walnut trees. The suggestions for landscaping were to mix them with other plants to balance color, etc. so I thought about moving a couple of my hostas over there too. Some of them bloom with small flowers near the soil surface, making the flowers hard to see. The maintenance seems right up my alley, water regularly, feed annually, prune back every few years if they get too leggy and divide them if they get too clumpy or you want to propagate them.
As you can tell from the picture, they are still in the pots I brought them home in, and are not at all unhappy. I WILL eventually get them into the ground, and since it is getting really cold at night again, I'm shooting for next week. I just have to get out there and not get distracted by all the leaves...
Under the Solano Sun