Blog
Magical Mahonia
It is New Year’s Eve, beautifully cold and dry, and I am walking home from my cousin’s house when I notice what appears to be a bundle of chimney sweep brushes towering above the low hedge that skirts around the deserted Sainsbury’s supermarket carpark. Although the hour is late, I linger awhile and admire the architectural beauty of this leggy beast, on which even the moonbeams seem to be loitering. Observing the shrub illuminated by moonlight quite literally allows me to see it in a new light. Even at night I believe I can identify this magnificent specimen, I take it to be Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ due to its tallness and the sparseness of its outline. Its large, compound leaves, composed of holly-like leaflets paired along a central axis, are arranged in whorls on top of each stem like clusters of steampunk neck ruffs. Cupped in the leafy hands of the rosettes are long upright racemes of flowers. Suddenly I register how cold it is, and a volley of fireworks has started. It must be midnight; time to go. I take my woolly hat from my coat pocket and pull it on and depart whistling ‘Chim Chim Cheree’.
I had forgotten about my midnight mahonia meeting until today, when I am standing at the bus stop on Nightingale Gardens waiting for the 221. A gentle breeze has wafted a hint of lemony scent to my nose. Looking around I see a mass of mahonia. In daylight I can admire their lemon-yellow flowers creating elegant explosions against a dark, glossy backdrop of prickly leaves. I think this more compact, lower growing form is Mahonia x media ‘Winter Sun’. This cultivar is said to be even more fragrant than ‘Charity’. Putting down my shopping bags, I walk over to the shrub to indulge in its perfume, and the strong lily of the valley-like scent is something else. Now I can see that the bush is buzzing with navigating buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) hurrying about their business. I find it amazing to observe foraging pollinators in the depth of winter. The bees move quickly from flower to flower. As the flowers sense the presence of a bee, their touch-sensitive stamen rapidly close in on the insect, daubing pollen onto their visitor. This rapid action not only spreads pollen, but it also encourages the pollinator to move on quickly to the next flower. You can watch this action for yourself if you gently probe the inside of a mahonia flower with a pencil. The magic doesn’t end here; the stamens are able to reset themselves for the next visitor. From the corner of my eye, I spy an approaching bus, so I hurry back to the stop. Looking out of the window as we prepare to depart, I see a cloud of blue tits alight on the bush and start eating the buds and blooms. The prickly, evergreen foliage quickly becomes a protective hideaway for the tiny birds as a prowling cat slinks across the frosty grass behind the bushes. Wildlife certainly seems to appreciate this plant, and so do I.
However, many people look down their noses at winter flowering mahonias because of their popularity in amenity horticulture. These beautiful shrubs seem to carry an unnecessary burden of cultural baggage among gardeners, being dismissed as mere ‘car park plants’. Their ability to flourish in poor soils and tough conditions without the need for much maintenance, their effectiveness as an indestructible evergreen shrub, is why they features so frequently in housing estate gardens, supermarket and council carparks, and outside blocks of flats. This horticultural snobbery means we miss out on growing some wonderful plants. And one of those is the much-maligned Mahonia x media in all its varieties. Sadly, for some, even the beautifully scented flowers of this reliable evergreen shrub, which pop up in the dead of winter just when you need them most, and the resulting blue-black berries which are a magnet for wildlife, are not enough of a draw to shake some folk out of their ingrained attitude. The loss is theirs.
If Mahonia x media is not to your taste, perhaps because of its size, prickliness, or ubiquity then there are plenty of other mahonias worth considering. I think even a dyed-in-the-wool mahonia-hater could be won over by their lavish diversity.
Mahonia eurybracteata ‘Soft Caress’, for instance, one of the more recent introductions, produces metre-high mounds of light, feathery foliage that, to me, resemble clumps of Kentia palms. This variety flowers in late summer and early autumn and has a warm, honey-like scent that perfectly suits its golden sprays of flowers.
And if you want something even more unusual, Mahonia ‘Volcano’ will knock your socks off with its fiery autumn flowers that start as copper-red buds that open to golden-yellow, carried on plants whose new growth is soft and fern-like. Ideal for smaller gardens due to its slow growth rate and elegant stature, of up to 1.2m, it makes a wonderful statement plant that won’t suddenly take over your space.
Finally, if you have an empty space in a difficult situation in your garden, and want to grow Mahonia x media, then I would recommend going for the form ‘Winter Sun’. I think it has the best scent of all the cultivated varieties and seems to flower earlier than some other cultivars. If you can plant it in a sheltered position near to a path or doorway, then you will be able to enjoy the sweet fragrance from this burst of floral sunshine whenever you venture outdoors on chilly winter days.
Further reading:
Pollinator plants – Read Here
Scented Winter Shrubs.
Dear Ali . I thought that was a lovely piece of writing on ‘Magical Mahonia ‘ . Like some of my neighbours we gave up on the Mahonia which had sharp holly like leaves as when the leaves fell into the garden they had to be quickly gathered up before crawling and scampering grandchildren came out to play . Perhaps now we can look to the Mahonias which have softer kinder leaves as mentioned in your article .