Deciding what to plant in a garden after discovering honey fungus can be a challenge for gardeners. Using information and research from the RHS, you can avoid very susceptible trees and shrubs, and choose more resistant ones. This should help reduce further losses, allowing you to continue to enjoy a garden full of height, structure and interest.
Ceratostigma provides ground cover, which helps to cover any bare soil, reducing soil surface erosion and discouraging unwanted seedlings from establishing. Ground cover plants can also help to reduce soil moisture loss from the wind stripping moisture from exposed soil surfaces. Ceratostigma will also attract pollinators, increasing the garden’s biodiversity.
Additional organic mulching, preferably with homemade compost, can improve soil moisture retention and weed suppression. Mulches should be spread when the soil is already moist, to help trap some of that moisture before it dries out in summer.
1 - Ceratostigma plumbaginoides is a low-growing herbaceous perennial with spreading roots, forming a mat of stems bearing oval leaves that turn red or purple in autumn. Clusters of rich cobalt-blue flowers appear from late summer into autumn.
2 - Hydrangea quercifolia ‘Snowflake’ is a deciduous shrub to 2m tall, with boldly lobed, oak-like leaves that colour well in autumn, and arching conical panicles of double, sterile florets which fade to pink.
3 - Nandina domestica ‘Gulf Stream’ is a compact, bushy, evergreen shrub whose new growth emerges a bronze-orange colour in spring and turns green with age, but often retains a red-orange flush. In autumn and winter, the foliage turns shades of red and gold. Conical panicles of small white flowers in summer are sometimes followed by red berries.
4 - Garrya elliptica ‘James Roof’ is a large, bushy evergreen shrub with leathery dark green leaves and gracefully drooping grey-green catkins in winter and spring.
5 - Phormium ‘Sundowner’ is an evergreen, clump-forming perennial producing arching, sword-like pink leaves with green stripes and margins. Upright spikes of red flowers may appear in summer.
6 - Nandina domestica ‘Richmond’ is an evergreen or semi-evergreen shrub with glossy green foliage that turns red in autumn. Clusters of white flowers in summer are followed by bright red berries in winter.
7 - Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ is a deciduous shrub with light green leaves and flowers that form very dense, broad cones that are entirely green at first, opening pale lime green and later grading through to white. A slight pink flush in places gradually deepens a little to give a pink and green colour mix at maturity.