Plant of the week: Garrya elliptica
Despite all the snow and ice (depending on where you live, of course) it's a pleasant change to see something green and growing instead of something white and frozen solid.
Say hello to the silk tassel bush, otherwise know to the world as Garrya elliptica. Come January and February, this ordinary, rather drab and green plant suddenly sprouts long, slender catkins – the tassels which give it its name.
Left alone to grow where it likes to grow – a free-draining soil where the winter sun shines, and particularly against a sheltering wall – it will rise rapidly to reach a dozen feet or more, but it normally manages only half that height. The male plants produce the best catkins (no sexist comments, please) and because this is a plant which can tolerate most conditions, it's quite at home in coastal gardens.