Prunus serrula Branklyn

Prunus serrula Branklyn is a variety of Japanese Cherry awarded in England for its ornamental qualities as well as its performance in the garden. This charming small tree, decorative throughout the year, is one of those flowering cherries that we love as much for their spring flowering as for their bark, which is sublime in winter. It is enveloped in a shiny mahogany copper-coloured 'skin' streaked with white, a very warm, very rich hue, of great beauty in the yellow light of a beautiful December afternoon. In spring, it is covered with small, simple white flowers, at the same time as its leaves emerge. Then comes autumn, and the time for its foliage to change to gold and orange. Give this small tree a prime location, which will allow it to be admired through a window in winter.

Originally from western China, where it grows spontaneously, Prunus serrula was listed by the French botanist Adrien Franchet in 1890 and introduced to Europe by the Englishman Edward Adrian Wilson in 1908.

The Japanese cherry Branklyn is a small shrub with a naturally rounded and dense habit.  It will reach a height of about 4 m (13ft) and a spread of the same size at maturity. This variety has highly decorative bark: a coppery brown approaching mahogany, streaked horizontally with white, it exfoliates in patches, revealing a shiny, coppery new "skin". Its deciduous foliage develops during the month of April, in the form of pedunculate leaves, slightly pendulous, with prominent veins, slender in shape, with a gradually ascending base and an acuminate tip. The colour of the Japanese Cherry's leaves will evolve throughout the rest of the year, marking each season. During spring, its leaves will appear in a tender green colour, which will gradually evolve into dark green, before taking on warm yellow and orange colours in autumn. During the month of April, with the first spring heat, the Japanese Cherry will be covered with a multitude of simple and delicate flower clusters, formed by five white petals, surrounding golden and erect stamens. The flowers give way to non-edible fruits, green then black with red hues.

Magnificent in every season, Prunus serrula Branklyn keeps its major asset, its beautiful bark, for winter, which blends into the garden throughout the rest of the year. While it puts on a show in the colder seasons and in spring, it elegantly accompanies all the other plants in the garden.  It is often planted at the back of shrub or perennial beds, but it is also used as a specimen, which allows us to admire its beautiful coppery mahogany colour.  It can also be planted overhanging a large pathway, with the base adorned with an ornamental bramble (Rubus calycinoides california, Betty Ashburner), and Nepeta, in the company of other spring-flowering shrubs such as ornamental apple trees (Malus Evereste, Van Eseltine), Chinese almond tree (Prunus triloba), flowering peach trees, deciduous magnolias; the show is dazzling for at least a month!