I am excited! Many of you may never have seen a Fatsia plant in bloom.  I want to share it with you. This one is a show stopper in my yard and a tropical look for a broadleaf evergreen. I think everyone should find one and plant it to enjoy.  It blooms when almost everything else has finished blooming. I think I have a few dahlias and a very few roses left in bloom. It also looks nothing like any other plant I have.

This is the variegated type of Fatsia.  There is a dark plain green leaf type also which is the more common one. This variegated one is a beauty… 6′ tall, large 15″ palmate light cream and super dark variegated lobed, glossy leaves, needs some protection from the winds where we live, cold hardy, evergreen, and is a shade loving plant. The bees love it and there is little else blooming for them to enjoy. It is also fairly drought tolerant in zone 7A.

Here is a close up of the bloom.  It is a 2.5″ sphere of small blooms.  Some have opened and some have not. It ends up when open looking almost like a different version of dandy lion.  On the single bloom photograph you can see the open blooms toward the bottom. There is a tiny flesh colored ball in the center with white back petals and long white stamen.

It has a few other names too like Japanese Aralia,  False Castor-oil Plant,  Fatsia  Aralia, Aralia Japonica…plant names usually indicate their origins.  Monrovia has one out called ‘Camoflage’.

If  you are a plant nut like I am, this is a great plant pick. It is definitely uniquely interesting.