Sunday, March 14, 2010

Loropetalum: A Colorful Landscaping Plant

I thought I would share a little color today in the form of one of my favorite landscaping plants -- Loropetalum. Although Loropetalum plants bloom off and on during the spring and summer months, this is the time of year when they are at their peak, treating us to bright and showy fuchsia blooms.

Loropetalum is also called "Fringe Flower," because its delicate flowers are somewhat spidery in appearance.

Plants may grown up to four or five feet at maturity and about the same width, but size can be controlled with simple pruning.

If you live in the Deep South, you can probably find Loropetalum plants now at your local nursery, or somewhere like Home Depot or Lowe's. They are an excellent choice to be used as foundation plants, in containers, or as borders, and have the most attractive leaf color when planted in a sunny location, with well-drained soil.

3 comments:

Deb said...

beautiful....I'm going to look for them at the nursery....

RachelD said...

I DO love these!! They always remind me of all that crepe paper we used to cut into fringes so laboriously, stretching it out to swing from the ceiling of a party, or the chandeliers, or even across a doorway.

I DOOOO miss having certain plants which won't grow here---I covet crepe myrtle---watermelon crepe myrtle like in all the medians down lower I-65---most, I think. I just crane out the windows for miles, getting a warm Southern welcome as we near the coast.

Marjorie (Molly) Smith said...

Your's sure is pretty, right now. I had one in my back yard next to my bath room window, it was sooooo pretty, it was over 7 ft tall and probably just as wide. But when they reroofed our house this fall the guys who did it had to back up a big truck to the patio to load the old shingles and they backed over it, breaking half of it off and then when they threw down the shingles they messed up the other half. I was so mad, but DH told them don't worry about it, it's just a bush we can replant it. Needless to say I didn't speak to him or them for 3 days. I had to cut it back and so far it hasn't come back. I'm afraid I'm going to have to replace it. It was 17 years old.
Thanks for sharing yours with us.
Molly