Thursday, January 22, 2009

Purple Ninebark


Purple Ninebark
Physocarpus opulifolius 'Diabolo'
(fy-so-KAR-pus) (op-yoo-lih-FOH-lee-us)
Synonym: ‘Monlo’

This is the flower of one of the nicest foliage plants to come out in a long time. The dark reddish purple leaves add a lot of drama to the garden. These flowers are almost inconspicuous compared to the leaves. ‘Diabolo’ gets a little bigger than the 4-6 feet advertised; it is quite a vigorous grower. There are several other nice Ninebarks available including the dwarf ‘Summer Wine’, which has smaller leaves and stays a lot shorter. I am also partial to Golden Ninebark as it a nice splash of color. Most Ninebarks require hard pruning every once in awhile.

Today we are loading up the car and driving out to California from Connecticut. Ruby, Juno, the computers and quite few cameras are going. Oh and of course Karen is going too. There may not be many updates for the next couple of days although I am interested in trying Blogging on the road. Certainly when we get to San Diego I plan on taking a lot of pictures and posting regularly.

2 comments:

Les said...

Sounds like a great road trip. I am partial to 'Coppertina' and there is a new one out whose name escapes me, but it is a bright charteusy-yellow changing to burgundy.

Digital Flower Pictures said...

I will have to check those out. Thanks, Les.