Caryopteris

Today Southern Gardening is back at the Trucks Crops Branch Experiment Station in Crystal Springs. Let’s take a look at a couple of gorgeous fall blooming Caryopteris landscape plants. Caryopteris Gold Crest is a perennial mounding shrub that’s commonly called bluebeard. This Caryopteris selection is a late bloomer and is a wonderful plant for the fall season when the flowers start to develop. Gold Crest Bluebeard displays vivid, bright blue flowers which I absolutely love. When the blue flowers are viewed against the golden chartreuse foliage, the contrast is stunning. Even more stunning is the number of various bees visiting the flowers. The plants seem to move with the bees and even buzz. Gold Crest prefers full sun and moist, well-drained soil, but tolerates drier soil once established. A fairly new variety, Caryopteris Emerald Crest, has dense clusters of bluish-purple flowers in late summer and fall. This plant, with glossy emerald green foliage and a nice, mounded habit, makes an excellent addition to the landscape. Like Gold Crest, Emeral Green is a great butterfly, bee, hummingbird, and other pollinator insect attractor. Both of these plants are cold hardy in USDA zones 6-9, making them a great addition to any of our Mississippi landscapes. I am Eddie Smith, and I will see you next time on Southern Gardening.