Tutsan

Family: Hypericaceae (St. Johnswort family)
Genus: Hypericum
Species: androsaemum

“Requires minimal moisture.”

You can hang that sign on a branch of the nearest Hypericum androsaemum. Aren’t those just the perfect words to warm a gardener’s heart this time of year? Whoops, wait a minute. Now that I think about it, perhaps “warm” is the wrong term to use, particularly during this Summer of 2003, when some of us have wondered if the west coast didn’t flip-flop and switch us with southern California sometime in the middle of the night in early June when we weren’t paying attention. It’s hot! Perhaps I should have said, “chill” a gardener’s heart—but that makes me think of slugs and root weevils and Asian longhorn beetles. Anyway, not having to water very much sounds good. We’re all too busy to wet everything down, and water’s scarce anyway. So aren’t we just all set to appreciate a plant that doesn’t need much water—or much care, either?

Besides, it’s really pretty.

In fact, it was Tutsan’s good looks, not its water requirements, that persuaded me to choose it as this month’s featured plant. Tutsan turns heads. It turned mine, on a visit to John Van Miert’s yard late last summer. I couldn’t identify it and was amazed when he told me it was a Hypericum. I associate that name with the dusty, bedraggled stuff that suffers alongside highways across the West where it was planted no doubt by the department of transportation (sorry, Al, nothing personal) with the expectation that nothing would kill it. They were very nearly right, but it just doesn’t look very attractive while it’s so busy surviving.

The highway species is Hypericum calycinum, commonly but not so affectionately known as creeping St. Johnswort. It does have interesting yellow flowers, but then so does Tutsan. Those flowers are characteristic of the Hypericum genus and most of its 400 species of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous perennials have them. The flowers have no nectar and so bees aren’t interested in them. But their bright color and the abundant pollen produced by the many stamen attract beetles and many insects to do the job.

The blooms begin in early June and last in our area through the end of July, when they are replaced by red berries that look a little like translucent cranberries. These hang on well into fall, gradually turning glossy black. Hypericum androsaemum is deciduous and sometimes a little finicky about cold. If the top does die back in the winter, the roots should survive, particularly if you put some mulch around them in the fall.

H. androsaemum has characteristic flat stems and beautiful leaves that are nicely shaped and quite large. They begin the growing season green, turn chartreuse in mid-summer—particularly in full sun—and in early fall, they acquire a purplish tint which goes very nicely with the black berries. The berries, by the way, are inedible but not poisonous. Traditional healers made a compote of them and administered it as a diuretic. In Europe the leaves are used as poultices and ground up for healing salves. That’s how Tutsan got its name, patois of the French toute saine which, loosely translated, means “absolutely, totally healthy.”

Tutsan is native to the open woods and hillsides of Eurasia, which helps to explain its tolerance for soil on the dry side. H. androsaemum is susceptible to root rot in heavy soil and wilt and rust where the humidity is high. I’m told nematodes are a problem in the southeast. Mine is troubled by an as-yet unidentified chewer—a very neat one, at that—but the damage is well within my tolerance level. I was thrilled the other day to come across a photograph of a Tutsan from a fine British garden with the same cuts as mine—and it wasn’t a diagnostic exercise, either. If it doesn’t bother them, it’s certainly not going to bother me.

H. androsaemum is easy to grow in average, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade—although the more sun, the more flowers, and the brighter yellow they’ll be. All in all, it’s a pretty plant that’s well suited to our area. Not too well suited, though, I hope. I must add a warning that the dreaded word “stoloniferous” is applied to this Hypericum as well as to its highway relative. I haven’t found any warnings that Tutsan has similarly thuggish tendencies anywhere in this country. However, it’s listed as a pest plant in western Australia. We know from experience with purple loosestrife and other pretty plants what happens when an introduced ornamental likes a new territory too well. So if you do settle Hypericum androsaemum into your garden, keep your eye on it. We don’t want to be reading about it in Laurel’s column five years from now, do we?