Nandina domestica Richmond - Sacred Bamboo

Nandina domestica 'Richmond' is a cultivar of the Sacred Bamboo selected for its particularly abundant fruiting, in dense clusters of bright red fruits, in harmony with its autumn reddened foliage. Its generous summer flowering, in large white panicles, often neighbours the previous year's intense red fruiting, just like its spring shoots. This very beautiful evergreen bush constantly recreates a joyful and changing scene throughout the year. Versatile, accommodating, and sculptural, it finds its place in mass plantings, as a standalone specimen, and in informal hedges. It will be ideal in a large pot on a terrace.

'Richmond' Sacred Bamboo belongs to the Berberidaceae family. It is a very beautiful variety, which received the RHS "Award of Garden Merit" for exceptional plants. This bush is a hermaphrodite form of Nandina domestica originating from India, China, and Japan. It is therefore more fruitful. The growth rate of this small bush is quite slow and its adult size will reach 1.25m (4ft) in height, sometimes more, with a spread of 90cm (35in). This plant has a fairly round silhouette. It forms upright and branched stems reminiscent of bamboo, which are spread out and adorned with narrow and pointed leaflets. Its vegetation is dense, compact, but slender and beautifully rounded. The plant is beautiful all year round. Its reddish-purple young shoots produce narrow leaves, which are red when budding, before turning green in summer, and finally turning red-orange to purplish in autumn. In June-July, it produces large conical panicles of cream-white flowers, 30 to 40cm (12 to 16in) long. They are followed by abundant clusters of numerous shiny red fruits, if the summer is long and warm enough. They persist on the branches for a long time in winter. The root of this plant is a rhizome.

Nandina domestica 'Richmond' is particularly admirable in large plantings. It can be planting with, for example, tree peonies, a Mexican orange tree, rudbeckias, Spiraea japonica 'Little Princess', Euphorbia griffithii 'Fire Glow', crocosmias, or daylilies. Each of these scenes will be a success. This small bush will also be magnificent in a large pot on a terrace, in a non-scorching exposure with regular watering. In a flowering hedge, it can be accompanied by, for example, Kolwitzia amabilis, Viburnum tinus, Lespedeza thunbergii, or Abelia grandiflora.