Sarcococca confusa looking very sad

Hi All,

I have only bought the house in June 2022 and was pleased to see a couple of Sarcococca confusa, as I know they smell nice and the birds like the berries.

However, after the week long heavy snowfall we had in December, they are now looking very sorry for themselves and I don't know whether to leave them, like I am doing with Fuchsia and Hydrangeas or but them back? I haven't done the scratch test, as I assuming it is still alive, as there are some leaves, but wondered if it needed a boost to get the 'evergreenness' (not sure that's a word, sorry ) back?

The Lady who had the house before, had lived here for 35 years, so I am assuming it is quite a mature plant, if that makes a difference?

Many thanks in advance, as always, for your words of wisdom

 

I think you need to leave it, nothing much is going to happen until spring when you can see what is alive and what isn't.
You can then trim back to strong shoots.

 

Thank you @pete, I will have to 'grow' some patience

I had a really sad year last year, then with renovations on the house didn't go as planned, so I didn't get out into the garden at all, so now I am itching to get started but appreciate I need to wait until nature sorts itself out!!

Thank you, I will just take notes of the plants looking a bit sad and watch to see what they have in store for me

 

Yeah, it's very easy to get ahead of yourself at this time of year.
We have all done it.

 

Hi @Barders are you sure it's sarcococca? Looks like hypericum to me. Though it could be my eyesight...

 

I did have a second look, but I thought it was just devastated.

 

Hi @CarolineL well I THINK it is, but to be honest, I didn't pay that much attention to it last year and it was the berries and leaf shape that made me think it was.

But will see what happens in Spring and see if it is a hypericum, thank you for the suggestion.

 

Thank you @JWK I had thought they were hardy evergreens, but it was probably my fault for the state of it, whatever it is!

I moved to Ross from Kent and wasn't expecting the foot or two of snow to stay on everything for a whole week, so I should have knocked it off everything

I will know better next time!

 

One more for Hypericum.

Blackstart

 

Thanks @shiney and @blackstart

The berries look blackish but I didn't pay much attention to them before the snow

I haven't come across hypericum before, (not knowingly anyway) so will look forward to learning more about this in Spring and fingers crossed they (there's another one near by it that looks as sad!) will recover in Spring

Thanks again

 

Arh! @shiney the top one does look more like the leave on the plants! I will have a look again tomorrow, but the colouring is definitely similar!

I have looked on the RHS website and there is a species, H. androsaemum, where the berries go from red to black, so that is probably it! I will pay more attention to it this year

What a wonderful experience, thinking that one of my shrubs was dying, to find out it might be something completely different, how exciting!!

Thank you everyone