With a bright light green to gold leafy visage, Sun King is lush with compound leaves. In mid-summer through fall, it’s covered with large racemes of white sputnik flowers buzzing with bees. Inedible but pretty purple-black berries follow for the pleasure of birds. Aralia potentially needs a bit of room; it’s self-sowing and rhizomatous. In Japan and Korea where it’s native, it enjoys open forest understory, so make it your bright spot in dappled shade. Too much shade and you’ll lose its bright coloring.
