Aesculus x mutabilis 'Penduliflora'

Aesculus x mutabilis 'Penduliflora'
Horse Chestnuts have some of the largest and most impressive flowers of any tree that we can grow in the UK, putting on the kind of display only usually seen on tropical trees. This hybrid only grows about 2m tall and as wide with slender palmate leaves that are large for it's shrubby size with the individual leaflets hanging slightly, looking almost like a sub tropical Schefflera. They are a bright mid green and held on pink flushed stems with an exotic quality. Like most Aesculus they appear very early in the season but drop in early autumn, the flowers emerge a little later than the common tree forms of Aesculus and are worth waiting for. Although the main part of the flower is a dull cerise pink with a muted yellow tip to the petal the overall colour is striking. Each flower panicle can be 20cm long with a rich pink branching structure and as the name of this plant suggests they are held pendulously instead of the typical upright Horse Chestnut flower. We have grown this plant for 12 years now and it has stayed at a large shrub size flowering reliably and for over a month. It is a hardy exotic-looking high impact shrub with the flowering display at eye level, as shown by this pair of 10 year old plants in the wooded medow at The English Country Garden in Berkshire.