-
Easy planting plans and garden ideas
These plants deserve to be better known for their subtly attractive springtime show of white, bellshaped flowers in hanging clusters. Blossoms are fragrant (only faintly so in Styrax japonicus). Nonaggressive roots. Provide reasonably good, well-drained, nonalkaline soil. Prune to control shape; tend to be shrubby unless lower side branches are suppressed.
Native to eastern Asia. Grows to 30 ft. tall; often narrower than high in youth, but spreads as wide or wider than tall in maturity. Slender, graceful trunk. The branches are often strongly horizontal, giving the tree a broad, flat top. Oval, scallop-edged dark green leaves to 3 in. long; may turn a good red or yellow in fall. Small clusters of 3/4-in.-wide flowers hang on short side branches; leaves angle upward from branches while flowers hang down, giving effect of parallel green and white tiers.
