Copper colored sepals add beauty to a maintenance free shrub. Thanks to the efforts of plant hunters and hybridizers centuries ago, I found the perfect plant to greet both the postal carrier and me at the curbside mailbox —the glossy abelia. This beautiful shrub, Abelia x grandiflora, resulted from a pairing of A. chinensis and A.uniflora. The hybrid debuted to the Western world in Italy around 1886.

Abelia, an Asian native in the honeysuckle family, is an evergreen in South Carolina with ornamental delights year–round. Nonstop from spring through fall, the graceful arching branches covered in shiny leaves bear clusters of small faintly fragrant, tubular pink flowers beckoning butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. When flowers fall, copper–colored sepals assume the ornamental effects. In autumn through winter, foliage has bronze to purple tints. The bark of older canes peels like crape myrtles providing textural interest.

My abelia likes its fullsun location, acidic sandy loam, and elbow room to grow to its natural mounding form getting three to six feet tall and just about as wide. Abelia is one of the most durable plants for drought conditions.

The shrub needs very little pruning except to restrict size or remove dead canes. Very old plants may be rejuvenated by cutting stems to the ground in late winter.

Abelia is tough and reliable for many landscape purposes. Although often used as a solo specimen, it also makes an excellent informal hedge, barrier, or screen. Some gardeners train it against a wall for espalier, but this distorts its graceful natural mounding form. ‘Sherwood’ is a cultivar grown on slopes to control erosion. ‘Prostrata’ is a compact ground cover. Butterfly gardeners bed abelias alongside buddleia and lantana.

Butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds are attracted to the tubular flowers. Propagation is by seed or softwood cuttings. Seeds should be sown as soon as they ripen. Cuttings taken from June to August should be dipped in rooting hormone prior to placing in moist potting medium.

Abelias are virtually pest and disease free and are considered deer resistant.

Michael Dirr and colleagues in the Department of Horticulture at the University of Georgia have brought the breeding of abelias into the 21st century with superb new introductions including ‘Rose Creek,’ ‘Canyon Creek,’ ‘Plum Surprise,’ ‘Raspberry Profusion,’ ‘Lavender Mist,’ and ‘Sunshine Daydream.’ Breeding program objectives are to introduce compact plants with profuse and larger blooms in a new variety of colors. Butterflies and gardeners are the beneficiaries… and postal carriers too.
Exfoliating bark, purple stems, and arching canes add ornamental interest to the garden.