Most aucubas demand a matchmaker, a male plant set near a female before a single red berry will form, but Aucuba japonica 'Rozannie' needs no such arrangement. This compact, deep green selection is self-fertile, setting large, glossy scarlet fruit without a separate pollinator, and fruiting even more heavily when a male happens to grow nearby. Add to that lustrous, coarsely toothed, unspotted foliage and a tidy three-to-four-foot frame, and 'Rozannie' becomes one of the most useful aucubas for a shaded garden.
Aucuba japonica is one of the great problem-solvers of the shade garden, a glossy broadleaf evergreen that thrives in the dry, difficult shade where few other shrubs will, and var. borealis is the toughest of the clan. Drawn from the cold northern reaches of the plant's Japanese range, this small-leaved form was selected for hardiness, holding very shiny, dark green, leathery leaves through winters that would burn a common aucuba. The genus name is a Latin rendering of the Japanese aokiba, for the ever-green leaves.
This is one of the quiet mysteries of the Woodlanders collection, a narrow-leaved evergreen aucuba received years ago from the U.S. National Arboretum under the name Aucuba himalayica, and quite possibly the slender japonica form known as 'Longifolia' instead. Either way the plant is a striking departure from the usual aucuba, trading broad, spotted leaves for long, willow-like, finely serrated blades of glossy dark green. Woodlanders has not seen this aucuba offered anywhere else, which makes the plant a true collector's piece whatever the correct name proves to be.
