Corokia Cotoneaster (Korokia or Wire Netting Bush)

An unusual bushy shrub from New Zealand, where these kinds of things do seem to all originate. It has that farthest-end-of-the-Earth quality to it which seems common in New Zealandish things, being a little uncanny and ethereal and definitely very charming. Do not let its pedestrian common name dissuade you of this. It has ziggy-zaggy black stems which are all jaggedy and dense and yes, a little wire-netting like. But its tangly dense mass of strands sprinkled with teensy leaves seem to us more akin to something wobbling atop a Georgian Duchess, a big puffly cloud of piled-up grey-green fluff.

These delightful and quirky shrubs will grow quite slowly and densely, achieving a pretty skein around 3 x 2metres. In Spring, they will be spangled with constellations of yellow flowers, each a tiny six-pointed star, that will be followed by red or yellow berries.

Magical for a contrasting wodge of silver-grey among some shrubberies or blobberies of more typical greens in a border, or planted against a warm wall to swoosh up and tumble-roll forward in a big pother of cloud-coloured coif. Tease and primp away, if you like, for it manages a gentle pruning very well and you could have some fun styling them into wispy cones and pompadours if that’s your thing.

Where it comes from the Korokia manages to thrive in a wide range of conditions from subalpine to coastal cliffs. Another typically adaptable New-Zealand quality then, and you’ll be entirely unsurprised to learn that it isn’t too fussy about soil either. Plant it in full sun in a sheltered position though as our UK winters can be a great deal more spiteful than it would normally weather. We’ve seen it grown as a conservatory specimen very well, and even as a houseplant but it never looks properly happy indoors and it looks weird inside anyway. Fresh air and loads of light directly from the sky for these, please.

N.B. When clipping several plants with the same tool, have a bucket containing a 5% bleach solution and swish your blades around for 30 seconds between plants to sterilise them. This will help avoid the chance of cross contamination of disease.

As with all woody plants, plant high, exposing as much of the taper at the base of the trunk as possible. Allowing soil to accumulate round the base of a tree can be fatal. Keep very well watered when first planted.