LyaSorano's Blog

There is a Pipestem in my Garden
Jul 8, 2008 | 12:01 PM PST
Tag: Agarista Populifolio

Or at least I think there is. The shrub is what my friend Dawn Olivares calls “a volunteer”. I did not buy it, nobody gave it to me, it just arrived. It came as a little thing, maybe 4 or 5 inches tall, in a container that held a plant I had bought. When I put the plant in my landscape, I was on the verge of throwing the hitchhiker away, but I decided to let it sit for a while and see what happened. Well, it grew. So quickly, in fact, that within just a few months I had to take it out of the pot and find it a place in my garden. It’s now at least 6 feet tall, about 5 feet wide and I’m still not sure what it is!

The other week, I visited Thyme After Thyme, a very pretty and busy nursery in Winterville (Georgia), where all of a sudden I saw a huge shrub that looked like my mystery plant. “Florida Leucothoe / Agarista Populifolio” it said and when I looked it up later, I saw that its common name is “Pipestem”. Mine has leaves that are a little more “curly” than the one at the nursery, but other than that it sure looks very similar. Perhaps they are cousins. In any case, I am going to call my shrub a Pipestem, unless someone tells me otherwise, and I sure am glad I have kept it.