The Best Ninebark Shrubs for the Garden

Newer varieties have better habits, color, and disease resistance

Common ninebark ( Physocarpus opulifolius ) is one of those shrubs that I learned about in college and then forgot about until sometime around the Millennium , when empurpled - leavedDiabolo ® transformed a humble aboriginal shrub into a fashionable garden plant . While not the first color form , Diabolo ® seize attention and clearly spurred breeders to get to work . What play along was a raft of colorful selections , from dusky purple to eye - catching yellows . Indeed , enhanced colour is the advanced ninebarks ’ cachet — burgundy , majestic , icteric , red , orange , and coppery leaf in leaping , summer , and fall . As green shrubs go , ninebark is serviceable albeit ho - hum ; colorized , and it becomes something special .

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This bush has its detractors ; after all , ninebarks can be large , coarse , and gangly . In his tome on woody plants , Michael Dirr archly dismisses ninebark : “ The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum has a large collection of ninebarks and after reckon over the entire group , I still came away with the opinion that about anything is good than aPhysocarpus . ” To be fair , that is his opinion from the 1990s , and he was referring to the world before Diabolo ® .

It seems to me that ninebarks may still be a bit underappreciated , but I go for that ’s not true for much longer . Perhaps the market vividness of the original colorized options — Diabolo ® , Coppertina ® , and ‘ concentrate Glow’—made them ubiquitous , but their disease problems made them vexing . Newer introductions bid enhanced leaf colors , smaller habits , and disease opposition . Until recently , I had evaluated only threeninebarks in my calling ; that ’s why I was eager to develop and liken the newest ones against the old standard . The trial is ongoing , but initial results are promising . So now is a good time to give ninebarks another face , or peradventure a first feeling .

Ninebark Trial Parameters

The Chicago Botanic Garden is presently evaluating 26 dissimilar ninebarks in comparative trials that set about in 2019 .

How long : Three yr into a six - year study

Zone:5b

shape : Full sun ; well - enfeeble , alkaline , clay - loam soil

deal : We provide minimum guardianship , allowing the plants to boom or give out under natural conditions . Besides observe their ornamental traits , we monitored the plants to see how well they grew and adapted to environmental and grime conditions , while keeping a tightlipped eye on any disease or pest problems and assessing flora trauma or loss over winter .

Top-Performing Ninebarks

Amber Jubilee™

The vivacious foliation ofAmber Jubilee ™ is most radiant in spring , when it glows deep orange rather than the orangish - bronze of standardised cultivars such as ‘ Center Glow ’ or Coppertina ™ . The color shifts in midsummer to green with bronze - rosy , gilt - yellow terminal leave of absence , and last to an autumnal blend of orangish , red , bronze , and purplish green . The bloodless flowers are pleasing , and butterflies jazz them , but the kaleidoscopic color show is longer last and more satisfying . Amber Jubilee ™ is a broad , vase - shaped plant with arc offset . Its light tawny twigs pair nicely with the calorie-free tan - gray exfoliate barque , which look almost white when the branches are bare .

Red Robe™

Red Robe ™ is an development of exquisite colors from spring to fall . Leaves come forth glossy orange - bronze but quickly lose luster as they darken to bronze - brown with orangey overtone . The summer mantle of obscure burgundy — flecked with golden - orange at the tips — glows red when backlit by the Lord’s Day and becomes ruddier as summer winds down . I have not seen Red Robe ™ at its full size—6 to 8 feet grandiloquent and wide — but am kind of giddy thinking about a big vase - shaped plant clad in all those plenteous colors . livid flowers , blush with purple , give way to bright reddened fruit clusters that ripen to deep Bourgogne in fall . blue crimson - purple twigs fade to burnish copper in wintertime , contrast beautifully with the hoary hoar peeling bark .

‘Dart’s Gold’

‘ Dart ’s Gold’has print me greatly , and more so for being more of an old - timer ; there is never a hour that its colourful foliage disappoints . The vivid gilt yellowness of its raw leaves rivals that of springtime - blossom forsythia ! Early summer is a study in orange and Au — there is a nuanced graduation from top to bottom of bright orange , golden - orangish , prosperous - yellow , and sensationalistic - green . Although the foliage fades to mostly green in late summer , it turn brighter lily-livered again in declination with hints of coppery orangish that glow like little flames at the tips . There are clump of white flowers in late outflow , but frankly , the dazzling leaves hog all the attention . The covenant , rounded habit—4 to 5 foot improbable and wide — is not as well - branched as that of some dwarf varieties , but it has more internal branching than many larger cultivar . Dark tawny twigsand light tannish barque stand out in a snow-clad winter garden .

Tiny Wine®

Tiny Wine ® is one of the original stocky cultivars with small leafage and many slender side branches . The leaves , keep on coppery twigs , exposed bronze - green and then age to dark burgundy - leafy vegetable before settle in late summer on cryptical K with a burgundy overlayer . In fall , cherry smolders from the inwardness outwards ; the final premix of Bourgogne and Marxist is quite good . Pink - flowered Tiny Wine ® shares a similarity to Sweet CherryTea ™ ,but its foliage coloring is sullen . In the winter landscape , its well - ramate habit shows well , with cinnamon twigs sprouting from exfoliate tan - gray barque . This diverseness stays trim and neat .

Festivus Gold®

Festivus Gold ® is as aglow as ‘ Dart ’s amber ’ but is even more radiant , if that is potential . The golden icteric leaping leafage matures to yellowed - green , with terminal leaves remaining bright yellow all summer . In capitulation the leaves are flushed with orange and bronze but never really lose their golden gleam . The tidy , rounded habit with ascend light atomic number 29 - colored branches is more heavyset than ‘ Dart ’s Gold’—3 to 4 feet talland wide — making Festivus Gold ® utter for small landscape . The tan exfoliating bark reveals soft salmon tones , which reminds me a spot of river birch rod . The adept part , Seinfeldfans , is that airing grudge and engaging in effort of strength are not required to revel this plant .

Tiny Wine®Gold

Tiny Wine ® Goldis the yellow version of diminutive Wine ® and features a similarly mean , graceful habit and size of it , small parting , and increase branching . White flowers , opening from pink buds , munificently pepper the arm in late natural spring . mark it just yellow is faineant — it is in truth a bonanza of color from spring through crepuscule . Leaves open up gilded green on ruby purple twigs , bit by bit becoming a admixture of yellowish and light-green , with each stem crowned in orange - copper in summer . Interestingly , fall color grow in contrary — diffused orange and yellow with burgundy tinge flush upward from the bottom , allow for the tips green until last . Come winter , twig fade to tawny above light tannish gray barque ; this shows more prominently in the landscape painting because of the branching pattern .

The slightly arching stems ofGinger Wine ® are apparel in rich burgundy foliage in summer and fall but set forth out very other than . The crimson - orange - bronze leave are strikingly beautiful against the whitish bark as they unfold . ( Game of Thronesnerd alert — the colors at this gunpoint remind me of the red and white weirwood trees of Westeros . ) The dark burgundy summer branchlet mirror the foliage color utterly ; winter branchlet are a light Ceylon cinnamon . Much like Red Robe ™ , the deep burgundy fall color is accented by redder leave at the tips . The shaggy-haired vase - shape habit looks more open in bound and wintertime because side branching is less pronounced than on Tiny Wine ® .

Richard Hawke is plant life valuation manager at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe , Illinois .

Sources

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Amber Jubilee™

Amber Jubilee™.Photo: Bill Johnson

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A color show like no other. Ninebarks have come a long way in the past 20 years, with new options sporting colorful foliage, bark, stems, fruit, and flowers.

A color show like no other.Ninebarks have come a long way in the past 20 years, with new options sporting colorful foliage, bark, stems, fruit, and flowers.Photo: millettephotomedia.com

Red Robe™