Monday, April 8, 2013

Hedging plant Loropetalum chinense 'China pink' in flower

In February I composed a blog entry on the hedging plant Loropetalum chinense 'China pink'.

http://aggregata.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/hedging-plant-loropetalam-chinense-in.html

At the time the hedge had just been trimmed and as such the flowers and pink / red foliage were not on show. I walked past the same hedge in Fairfield last week and saw that it had been left long enough to reveal its most attractive features. The coloured foliage is from new growth only which is why it has coloured up now to a pink / red colour. The colour has nothing to do with the fact that it is now Autumn. The fact that the hedge can be left to turn red with flowers or trimmed back to a more traditional green foliage hedge can be useful. If you change your mind you can change the colour of this hedge by adjusting your pruning technique.

For more detailed information on Loropetalum chinense plants please check my original blog entry listed on the above link.



It's easy to see why this plant goes by the common name of fringe flower.


Masses of flowers on the top of the hedge.


You can see the red foliage coloured up nicely. If it is left untouched for another couple of weeks it would be nearly all red foliage.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Alex, what a special hedge. I tried to grow this in my garden, but it wasn't tough enough to survive the lack of water, and died. In the photo, once it is that mature, and mass planted, it probably would survive. I just wasn't prepared to give it the TLC it needed to get established. This is my first visit to your blog but not the last!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the kind words. Yes that last drought was not a time to try and establish plants. I lost a few myself.

      Delete
  2. I've not seen this flower before, quite lovely planted as a hedge.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love it as you can customize its colour by adjusting your hedge trimming timing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Can I plant here in Florida?

      Delete
    2. I've never done any gardening in Florida (or even visited Florida) but according to this article I found you should be able grow it http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/home-and-garden/2011-05-14/story/garden-help-loropetalum-growing-popularity

      Delete