With their delicate blooms and robust foliage, elegant Japanese anemones provide an enduring spectacle
STANDING PROUD IN the late August sunshine, the wiry stems and saucer-shaped flowers of a patch of Japanese anemones dance in the breeze as summer begins to slip away. While the flowers of high summer have faded, perennials, such as these, step up to take centre stage, providing a final floral flourish before the weather turns colder.
Japanese anemones are hardy herbaceous perennials and belong to the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae. They are part of a wider group of anemones, including the spring-flowering species blanda and nemorosa, and the summer-flowering coronaria, but the Japanese anemones are prized for their late display of flowers that erupt in August and continue into October, and even November, depending on the cultivar.
Despite the common name, Japanese anemones originate mainly from China, but they found their way to Japan, where they were cultivated in gardens and escaped into the wild. There, they were discovered by European plant hunters in the mid 19th century, who brought them home, wrongly assuming them to be Japanese natives. The name ‘anemone’ is derived from ‘anemos’, the Ancient Greek for wind; hence, anemones are often known as windflowers.
In mid-spring, a clump of luscious foliage 12-18in (30-46cm) tall emerges above ground. The dark green leaves have an attractive palmate, or vine leaf-like shape, with toothed margins, and are held on long petioles. The flowers are at their peak in late August to the end of September, but some bloom earlier, and others keep on flowering until the first frosts. The blooms are approximately 8cm across and sit atop slender, but sturdy, stems, ranging in height from 2-5ft (61cm-1.5m). The flowers can comprise a single circle of petals or multiple rows of petals, in either white or a shade of pink; each petal having a silky sheen that glistens. The petals surround a centre of prominent golden stamens that are attractive to pollinators, particularly bees.
As the flowers fade, and the petals drop, yellowy green, bobble-like seedheads are left behind, which make an interesting feature. These gradually transform into a cotton wool-like substance that is dispersed by the wind. While the various species plants produce seeds, this is rarely the case with hybrids.
Japanese anemones spread by creeping rhizomes just under the surface of the soil and will ramble through a border away from the original clump. In the right conditions, they can spread rather too well and may even become invasive, with Anemone × hybrida ‘Robustissima’ being particularly v
