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Pieris japonica ‘Summer Hill’
Botanical Name: Pieris japonica ‘Summer Hill’
Common Name: Summer Hill Japanese Andromeda
Plant Hardiness: Zone 5
Flower: Small white flowers hang on 3″ to 6″ long panicles
Bloom Time: Early spring – March into April
Foliage: Evergreen and quite shiny during the summer
Fruit: Small dry capsule that persists throughout the season
Habit: This is an upright mounding broadleaf evergreen. This form has excellent branch structure and grows rather quickly when young
Size: 9′ to 10′ tall and up to 6′ wide
Sun Exposure: Will take full sun but also does very well in dappled sun
Native Habitat: Japan and Eastern China
Other Features: It is best to cut off dead flowers so plant energy goes into stem growth instead of seed production
Description
Description: For many years, we grew all our Pieris japonica from seed. However, we sometimes had such variation of plant growth because of using seedlings that we were not happy with our crop. One day when shearing Pieris, I came upon a plant that stood out from the rest. It had thick, heavy leaves, excellent branching, and a rapid growth habit. We set this plant aside and observed it for a few years and made a decision that from now on all our Pieris would come from this and other selected clones – cutting grown. This superior plant is the variety we have named ‘Summer Hill’. One aspect of this plant that I didn’t notice until we actually had it in production is that in the summer its foliage is very shiny, almost as if it had been waxed. When the sun strikes this variety in the summer, it has the extra added attraction of actually shimmering in the sun. It does not have as heavy a flower set as some of the other clones we tested, but overall, it makes an excellent plant.
