Y’all, I’m so excited about this plant! My awesome native supplier told me today that he has the ‘Pebblebrook’ Red Anise, Illicium floridanum, ready to sell. So, of course, I added it to the growing list of plants Ziva and I are picking up this week. Yay!!!
This variety grows a little smaller, 5-7′ tall and wide, and denser than the species does, 6-12′ tall and wide. Anise is a part sun to shade plant. It cannot take our full sun, especially full afternoon sun. Morning sun/afternoon shade or filtered sun is fine. Illicium floridanum is native from Florida over to Louisiana. This variety was discovered in a garden in Georgia. It loves acidic soil, so it grows great here in East Texas. It’s evergreen, slow to moderate grower at 12-24″ per year, blooms those beautiful star-shaped burgundy flowers March through June, and is very cold hardy. The flowers are about 2″ wide, with the leaves 2-6″ long.
The leaves smell like anise when crushed, but this is NOT the anise used for cooking. That’s the non-native anise.
These are in 1-gallon size and are $10 each.
I’m already working on next week’s plant pick up, and, man, am I excited about what new plants are coming to the Boutique!! I’ll have a post up about them soon.
Happy diggin’ in the dirt!
Jeanni and Ziva
Bella Jardins Boutique
Beautiful Gardens Begin Here