Tag Archive for: pacific coprosmas

How to use foliage plants

glamorous foliage
This is Coprosma Pacific™ Sunrise – proof that glamour doesn’t demand flowers.

Are we so shallow to think a plant must have flowers? And that a foliage plant is just a work-horse in the garden? Hopefully not – because we’d be missing out. Bred in Europe, the Pacific™ Coprosmas are certainly as dependable and solid as a work horse. Plant them pretty much anywhere and they will deliver what you want: healthy, lush growth with no effort on your part. Flowers aren’t their thing however, so can these fantastic foliage plants also be a glamorous addition to the garden? Stop and read on below to see how to use foliage plants in the garden and you’ll quickly answer “yes”…

A great looking pot plant: when a gardener plants something in a container, it’s like they’ve turned on the spotlight. The pot usually sits somewhere noticeable – like beside the front door or out on the patio – so whatever’s in that pot needs to put on a good show. And it goes without saying that it shouldn’t die, but instead thrive and keep on looking good for as long as possible. Enter the Pacific Coprosmas. Plant either one of them and you’ll be very confident that they’ll put on a lustrous performance thanks to their tough constitutions and glossy, painterly foliage.

glamorous foliage
This Coprosma Pacific™ Sunset, just home from the garden centre is looking ready to be admired poolside, and it’s not even in its new patio pot yet.

Worth a place in the landscape design: take a look at the work of any good professional, and you’ll soon work out that they don’t tolerate time-waster plants. And by time wasters we mean plants that promise a lot but aren’t great on delivering without a lot of pampering, something a professional horticulturalist hasn’t the time to deliver. No surprises then that Pacific Coprosmas get used a lot. They have substance and a good ‘form’ (aka shape and bushiness), they deliver a colour punch where needed, and they demand pretty much zero maintenance. Copy the professionals and dot them through a mixed planting or use them to create a sweep or block of colour in a massed planting.

Dotted through or planted in sweeps, these professional plantings make good use of Pacific™ Coprosmas.
glamorous foliage

And if you need to plant a hedge: Pacific Coprosma offers up an interesting option, where the hedge can be planted to be a feature in itself. The glow of these coprosmas means that you can edge a path or create a wind break, and instead of it being a standard invisible green hedge, it becomes part of the forefront in the garden picture.

glamorous foliage
Hedges or even topiary, Pacific™ Coprosma offers up lots of options.
Garden centre hacks

Garden centre tips

Garden centre tips
Even a fabulous garden centre like this can make anyone break out in a sweat: but three smart tips make all the difference.

If walking into a garden centre overwhelms you, this is what’s going on and here’s how to sort it, with a few garden centre tips. To start with, there are a lot of plants to choose from. Then it’s about the fact that plants are living things and no-one wants a fail (aka dead plants). And finally it’s about wanting to choose plants that will look good. So, yes, your buttons get pushed, but here’s how to deal with it…

1. Break it down: When we walk into a garden centre we’re faced with a sea of plants. With too much on offer, where do we start? The trick is to take a deep breath and remember everything is organised to make everyone’s life easier. All the trees will be together, the shrubs, the pond plants, indoor plants, the seedlings. So find your area of interest and don’t worry about the rest. Now for the next step.

2. Good looks: To stop yourself taking home a boring plant, or worse, something that’s just ugly, take a good look at the selection on offer. A really good look with a bit of internet cross checking via your phone. For example, say you’re after something like a coprosma to plant into a container beside your front door, you could pick up a standard green version, something old-school which is ok but tends to grow into a rangy mess over time. Or you could spot the Pacific™ Coprosmas that have two-toned really gorgeous foliage and a great growth habit. Now to step three…

If you take the time to look, you can find beautiful options in amongst the sea of plants on offer at a garden centre. Why settle on the basic green of Coprosma repens (left) when you could have Coprosma Pacific™ Sunrise (right) instead.

3. Take only the strong with you: Be sensible and leave the delicate fussy plants to the experts or the nurturers. Your mantra should be survival of the fittest, so whip out your phone again and do a bit more online checking to see if the plant you’re considering will happily thrive with minimum care. For example, a quick search with ‘Pacific Coprosmas’ brings up phrases like ‘super-low-maintenance’ and the fact that they can be planted ‘in positions with high wind or salt spray’, both signs that these plants are not only lovely to look at, but tough too.

Gorgeous and tough enough to look this good on a hot, dry front stoop: Coprosma Pacific™ Sunrise at left and Pacific™ Sunset at the right. Bred in the United Kingdom, these coprosmas are compact in height, hold their shape well, and keep their colour year round with their pink or red highlights glowing brighter in the colder months.
cold colour coprosmas

3 reasons to plant coprosmas

3 reasons to plant coprosmas
Bold colour looks fantastic under wintry skies: this is Coprosma Pacific™ Sunset

Here are 3 reasons to plant coprosmas and why the Pacific™ Coprosmas in particular deserve a spot in the garden:

1. Best cold colour: when summer is long gone and the days get steadily colder, it’s time for Pacific™ Coprosmas to shine. There’s a bit of science behind why this happens: as the temperature drops, the colour accents in the foliage begin to pop. Pacific Sunrise coprosma’s hot pink highlights dominate and the vivid red leaf centres of coprosma Pacific Sunset glow. Where winters aren’t too severe, they are a great plant to have in the landscape simply because they are putting on a vibrant show when most other plants are taking a break from performing. The Pacific coprosmas really are cold colour specialists.

3 reasons to plant coprosmas
Coprosma Pacific™ Sunrise

2.Water miser status: as we’re all learning, dry spells where the rain doesn’t fall can happen at any time of the year. It seems counter-intuitive but just because it’s cold and wintry doesn’t necessarily mean that your garden is getting enough moisture. Which is why growing drought tolerant plants is always a good idea. Even better if the water misers you’re growing also happen to be gorgeous to look at. Like the Pacific Coprosmas. Stunning and definitely not thirsty.

3 reasons to plant coprosmas
A close-up of the glossy foliage of Coprosma Pacific™ Sunset which helps it use less water.

3. Landscaper love affair: it’s not a secret but the professionals love the Pacific Coprosmas. Not just because they are great to look at but because they settle in quickly and need no fussy care. For people who create gardens for a living, this is a major cost-benefit because they don’t have to call back often to nurse or replace plants. The other reason landscapers use Pacific Coprosmas is because these showy plants get noticed, and when people admire your work it leads to new commissions.

A great example of a commercial landscape design where clumping grasses contrast against the brilliant foliage of the Pacific™ Sunset coprosmas.

Gorgeous coprosmas look after themselves

coprosmas
Delicious, luscious with chocolate rimmed foliage, this is Coprosma Pacific™ Sunset.

Question: if you had to choose between a great-looking plant that was complicated to grow, or an equally great-looking plant that was dead easy to deal with, which would you choose? Be honest: you’d pick the unfussy plant. In fact, growing pretty plants that are easy is one of the best ways to be a successful gardener.

Ok, so does that mean you should go ahead and fill your green spaces with the tried and true – lavender, rosemary, daisy – plants that are easy to manage but not exactly gorgeous? Of course you can, but if you have a little time, why not look at plants which are great looking as well as easy to deal with? Let’s take the Pacific™ Coprosmas as an example and see where we get…

1: Eyes shut – is it easy to grow? Before we even think about how good looking these plants are, we need to be certain that they are as straightforward to grow as any lavender bush. Of course they are, and that’s because Pacific™ Coprosmas are the descendants of the New Zealand mirror bush. You know the one: it’s that tough beast of a wind-break plant that thrives in salt spray and dry conditions. These survivor characteristics have been passed on down to the Pacific Coprosmas thanks to the skill of plant breeders, so that the gorgeous Coprosmas Pacific Sunrise and Pacific Sunset not only look great, but thrive hands-free.

coprosmas
Glowingly pretty but tough as nails, this is Coprosma Pacific™ Sunrise.

2: Eyes open – how good looking is it? Now it’s time to open our eyes and check these coprosmas out purely on the basis of their looks. Remember, it’s good to have easy to grow plants but not if they are Plain Janes. These are both really lovely. Starting with Coprosma Pacific Sunrise, the leaves are small and slightly ruffled which gives the overall plant a really nice overall texture. The core of each leaf is chocolate brown but then the edges look like they’ve been dipped in pink. Add a bit of sunlight and you’ve a glowing moment. The Coprosma Pacific Sunset version is a bit more adult: it has the same ruffled foliage but this time the leaf is often a deep red with the edges dipped in chocolate. If you stand back and look at both plants they share the same glossy finish and both grow into soft dense mounds.

coprosmas
Seen here side by side and lightly clipped into low hedges, Coprosma Pacific™ Sunrise (left) and Coprosma Pacific™ Sunset (right) are a no-brainer choice for a full-proof, highly-attractive planting.

3: So do these coprosmas deliver enough to earn them a place in the garden? For lots of reasons, yes. Because they grow fast into a healthy dense bush without you doing anything. Of course you can clip them into classically crisp hedges, but you could also just as easily let them grow into hedges or bushes that are soft and natural. Another good reason to plant them is that they look good all year around, unlike some plants that look a bit invisible or just ordinary until they pop into flower for a few short weeks. And if you’ve ever wondered what garden structure was all about, it’s simple. To help a planting scheme look good all the time, it needs a framework of constant plants, things that will always look really nice. Pacific Coprosmas are a good example. There might be some fluffy plants coming in and out of flower, but if you have some of these dependable Pacific Coprosmas in the mix the whole effect will look very professional (no surprise really as landscapers make good use of them). One other thing to mention is that apart from giving them the courtesy of establishment waterings, these coprosmas don’t need feeding or spraying for bugs etc. And if you’ve mulched around them to stop any weeds creeping into the picture, they really are zero maintenance plants.