Aralia ‘Sun King’

* Common name: Aralia ‘Sun King’

* Botanical name: Aralia cordata ‘Sun King’

* What it is: This deer-resistant, shade-preferrer – sometimes nicknamed Japanese spikenard – looks more like a golden bush than a perennial flower.

   After a normally slow start, ‘Sun King’ can grow to a hefty size of four feet tall and wide (or more), but its most distinctive trait is its bright golden leaves.

   Native to Japan, Korea, and China, ‘Sun King’ was discovered in a Japanese garden center by York County’s own Barry Yinger, who has introduced more than 1,000 plants to U.S. horticulture.

   Plants also produce small white flowers from July through September and then reddish-purple fruits that birds usually devour.

   ‘Sun King’ was good enough to earn the Perennial Plant Association’s Perennial Plant of the Year for 2020.

* Size: Plants grow in a bushy habit four feet tall and wide.

* Where to use: ‘Sun King’s’ best growth and leaf color occurs in partly shaded spots with damp soil. Morning sun and afternoon shade is ideal, but so is dappled all-day light under somewhat open tree canopies.

   ‘Sun King’ will grow in full shade, but the leaf color will be more lime-green than bright gold. It’ll survive full sun but tend to “bleach out” in color and brown around the leaf edges, especially when it’s hot and dry.

   Good locations include woodland gardens, semi-shaded rain gardens and perennial borders, and eastern or northern house foundations.

* Care: Water in dry spells. Scatter a granular fertilizer formulated for flowers over the bed in early spring.

   Flower spikes can be cut off after bloom (especially if you don’t want fruits), then plants can be cut completely to the ground in late fall or any time before early spring after the leaves brown.

   Clumps can be dug, divided, and replanted in early spring if you want to limit spread or plant pieces in new areas.

* Great partners: Dark-leafed diervilla Kodiak Black is a good shrub partner in shade, while oakleaf hydrangea makes a brilliant fall-foliage contrast. Japanese forest grass, sedges, and ferns are good texturally contrasting perennials that appreciate the same conditions as ‘Sun King.’ And dark-leafed coralbells and dark-leafed ligularia ‘Britt-Marie Crawford’ are good part-shade, color-contrasting perennials.