Plant: Variegata - Aucuba
Aucuba · Aucuba japonica 'Variegata'
Size: 3 gal
Light
Bloom
Mature size
More about this plant
Variegata, the true Gold Dust plant, is a slow growing broadleaf evergreen shrub with a dense rounded habit and glossy, leathery, dentate leaves boldly spotted in gold and yellow. NCSU records it at 4 to 6 feet tall and wide. It is a female form, so with a male plant nearby it carries showy red drupes under half an inch through fall and winter. Grow it in partial to deep shade in soil high in organic matter that is moist and well drained; it tolerates heavy shade, pollution and poor soil, and it burns in summer sun. Use it as a hedge, a screen, a specimen for a dark corner or a container plant.
- Full Shade
- Grows to 6 ft tall and 6 ft wide
- Blooms in spring
- Hardy in USDA zones 7-10
- Evergreen foliage
Plant description
Variegata, the true Gold Dust plant, is a slow growing broadleaf evergreen shrub with a dense rounded habit and glossy, leathery, dentate leaves boldly spotted in gold and yellow. NCSU records it at 4 to 6 feet tall and wide. It is a female form, so with a male plant nearby it carries showy red drupes under half an inch through fall and winter. Grow it in partial to deep shade in soil high in organic matter that is moist and well drained; it tolerates heavy shade, pollution and poor soil, and it burns in summer sun. Use it as a hedge, a screen, a specimen for a dark corner or a container plant.
- Flowers
- Purple-maroon, 4 petals, 4 sepals, cross-shaped with white anthers.
- Foliage
- Spotted leaves; opposite, simple, elliptic-ovate to elliptic-lanceolate and dentate, in green flecked with gold, yellow and white.
- Fruit
- Red, ellipsoid, one-seeded, berry-like drupes to about half an inch that ripen in fall; female plants need a male pollinator to fruit.
- Bark & stems
- Succulent, green, glabrous and waxy stems with shield-shaped leaf scars.
- Light
- Deep Shade
- Native range
- East Asia and Japan
