Garden Centre

Thursday, December 18, 2008

December flowering shrubs: Mahonia

It blooms in winter, provides berries you can turn into jam, offers architectural foliage, and loves the dry shade. Mahonia is quite possibly the shrub that every garden needs.

My Mahonia easily makes nine feet tall in its utterly dry and mainly shaded north facing corner of the garden. And now, in December, it towers over the bare shrubs around it, giving off a sunburst of bright yellow which tempts me out into the garden, where I’m rewarded by its strong Lily of the Valley fragrance.

The only time I get blackbirds in my garden is December, when they come to pick the stamens out of the Mahonia flower, because they love to eat them, but their depredations seem to do little harm to the flower spikes.

The blue-black berries can be gathered in spring, if you don’t mind getting a few scratches from its spiky leaves which are green in summer and red-ting but remain on the plant all year round. The berries make a great, somewhat tangy, dark jam. And finally the mature bark has a snakeskin appearance which is most attractive.

Mahonia courtesy of DH Wright

Labels: december flowering shrubs, mahonia

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:12 AM

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