Mahonia offers stunning beauty

Soft Caress mahonia is rocking in the United States - and England too. The mention of mahonia brings to mind Oregon grape holly, Mahonia aquifolium, or its prickly sometimes invasive relative, the leather leaf mahonia, Mahonia bealei.

The name Soft Caress tells you this is not your typical mahonia. Indeed it is different, with thread-like foliage, soft to the touch and bearing no spines. Botanically speaking, it is Mahonia eurybracteata (subspecies ganpinensis) Soft Caress, and it gives a magical, almost fernlike texture to the garden, likening itself to anything other than mahonia. When you see those wonderful flowers and delightful fruits loved by birds, you instantly recognize it.

We have several at the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens and now, as if wanting to be a participant in the holidays, they are sending up their glorious spikes of golden yellow flowers, bringing in an abundance of pollinating bees.

Soft Caress originated in Alpharetta, Ga., courtesy of the great breeding and plant development program at It-Saul Plants. Gardeners will find it at garden centers as part of the Southern Living Plant Collection. But it is not just a hit in the United States. It just garnered the 2013 Plant of the Year title at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show in London.

Soft Caress is cold hardy from zones 7-9 (which is almost all of Arkansas), tough to around zero degrees, and will reach about 4 feet in height and almost as wide. We have clusters in close proximity to bamboo and others close to the Rising Sun redbuds.

Ours are thriving in partial shade, some getting brief direct sun, but high-filtered, shifting light would be just perfect. They perform best in fertile well-drained soil. So take the time to prepare a shrub bed by incorporating 3 to 4 inches of organic matter and two pounds of a 5-10-5 fertilizer per 100 square feet of planting area. Till the soil eight to 10 inches deep.

Dig the planting hole two to three times as wide as the rootball but no deeper. Your goal is to have the top of the rootball even with the soil surface. Place the plant in the hole and backfill with soil to two-thirds the depth. Tamp the soil and water to settle, add the remaining backfill, repeat the process and apply mulch.

Soft Caress is not considered a high-maintenance plant. As needed prune out any old ugly or damaged canes to encourage new young shoots and bushiness. In the woodland garden consider combining with host as, ferns and the repeat blooming Encore azaleas.

Ours are blooming now but I assure you whenever yours start, the bright yellow blossoms and busy bees will certainly give a breath of spring. The blossoms will give way to clusters of steel blue that also command attention not only from us but the birds that devour them. I would say everyone needs one but I heartily urge you to plant at least three.

HomeStyle, Pages 37 on 12/14/2013

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