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Growing Japanese Anemone
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Anemone - Japanese - Growing Guide

Growing Japanese Anemone

Forms of Anemone x hybrida and Anemone hupehensis

No herbaceous border can be complete without these attractive perennial plants which extend the flowering season on from late summer into autumn.

Japanese anemones are easy to grow given a moist, fertile, humus rich soil in partial shade. They can spread quickly by suckering shoots and need plenty of room or some containment. They dislike being waterlogged over winter and enjoy a rich planting bed with the addition of leaf mould or well-rotted dung before initial planting. Mulching over the crowns of these plants in spring or late autumn will help protect them in colder areas, reduce any weed growth nearby, and give the plants a welcome boost.

Japanese anemones, when mature, mostly put up flowering spikes of 3-5ft in height. These plants have oval and three palmate basal leaves and branched stems of flowers. The choice of flower colour is yours. A. x hybrida ‘September Charm’ is a single pale pink while ‘Honorine Jobert’ is a single pink. ‘Whirlwind’ has double white flowers while ‘Queen Charlotte’ has double pink flowers. You often see these varieties grown together for best effect.

Putting up flower spikes

Anemone ‘Wild Swan’ was RHS Chelsea Plant of the Year in 2011 and has become immensely popular since then. This is a smaller growing variety with an overall height of only 2ft. Its flowers are a single white with blue banding on the undersides of the petals.

Autumn flowering Japanese anemones may be very slow to die down in a mild autumn and there is often no rush in our part of the world to cut off the leaves and flowering stems to tidy up the plants for the next season. The crowns can easily be dug and divided either in late autumn or in early spring before the new growth starts again. The small offsets may be best grown on in pots for a year before replanting them out in the garden. When growing them on it pays to remove any small flower spike which forms to ensure that the plant puts its energy into its root growth.

Powdery mildew can be a threat to these plants when under threat in very dry periods. However they normally grow through this with no ill effect.