10 bushes with golden-yellow foliage to brighten the garden

Berberis thunbergii 'Tiny Gold'

This Berberis or Thorn-Barberry ‘Tiny Gold’ is a striking dwarf variety. It is a thorny bush with very compact growth, bearing bright, light green to fresh chartreuse deciduous foliage. Spring flowering of yellow tinged with red is followed by very decorative red berries in autumn. This compact, rounded variety with a ball habit makes an excellent rockery subject or a gentle pit in a border. It can also be showcased on a terrace or balcony. It is ideal for brightening a sunny or partly shaded spot. Very cold-hardy and undemanding, it suits any type of soil. A sunny position intensifies the foliage’s intense colour and flowering, but it will tolerate partial shade in southern and western France.

Berberis Tiny Gold

• For more information on these bushes, see our plant sheet: “Berberis, Thorn-barberry: plant, prune and maintain”
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Betula nana 'Golden Treasure'

This Betula nana ‘Golden Treasure’ is a dwarf birch. It’s a real boon for small urban gardens, rockeries, sunny balconies and terraces! It forms a very compact small bush, not exceeding 1 metre in any direction at maturity. Its foliage, deciduous, is composed of small acid-green leaves in spring, turning golden-yellow in summer and autumn. In May, upright yellow-brown aments rise above the fine foliage. This little ball of golden haze retains its lovely display from summer into autumn.

This small sun-loving, very hardy bush prefers soil that remains cool, low in lime, slightly acid to achieve attractive leaf colour and a sunny position.

Betula nana Golden Treasure

• To learn all about them, discover our plant sheet: “Birches: planting, cultivation and maintenance”
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Choisya 'Goldfinger'

Compact form, modest dimensions, bright evergreen foliage and white spring flowers with a delicate scent of citrus trees make Mexican orange or Choisya a precious bush in all gardens, even small ones. With its striking habit and exotic fragrance, it is a boon in an exotic-inspired garden. Choisya ‘Goldfinger’ is a variety with golden-yellow foliage, particularly luminous. Hardy down to -15°C, it adapts well north of the Loire in any light, not too calcareous, well-drained soil. It prefers a warm, sunny position sheltered from cold winds. After first flowering, a light pruning will keep its habit compact.

It creates a bright focal point in the garden: plant it as a specimen in a strategic spot to enjoy its delicate scent or to punctuate an informal hedge. It is also easy to grow in a container on a terrace.

Highly fragrant flowering of Choisya Goldfinger

• And to learn everything about this beautiful bush, discover our plant sheet “Mexican orange, Choisya ternata: planting, pruning and maintenance”
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Corylus avellana 'Aurea'

Here is a Hazel unlike any other, as elegant as it is indulgent! With its handsome stature and luminous crown, this Corylus avellana ‘Aurea’ is a fine fruiting bush that deserves a place in the ornamental garden. It differs from the typical form by colour of its luminous foliage, noticeable from afar. Late in spring, it produces young rounded, dentate and very strongly veined leaves, bright yellow turning progressively greener before falling in autumn, the two hues blending harmoniously. Very early flowering, before the leaves, takes the form of long pale-yellow pendulous aments on naked twigs that give way to hazelnuts at ripeness.

Plant it in ordinary soil that is not too dry: it thrives everywhere, in sun or partial shade. It forms an attractive focal point in the garden, grouped at edge of copse or within a loose hedge, fruiting or used as windbreak.

Spring foliage of Corylus avellana Aurea

• For everything about hazels and how to grow them in the garden, discover our advice sheet: “Hazel, Corylus – Plant, prune and maintain”
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Cotinus coggygria 'Golden Spirit'

Cotinus coggygria ‘Golden Spirit’ is a variety of wig tree characterised by deciduous foliage that changes through the seasons. Sumptuous golden-yellow colouring in spring gives way to coppery red in autumn. It is a bush with a bushy habit that reaches 3 to 4 m at maturity: a compact size suited to small gardens. Spectacular as it is surprising, the flowering, composed of a multitude of coppery-orange plume-like panicles with a beard-like appearance but above all resembling a wig, envelops the golden foliage of this Cotinus from summer through autumn. Easy to grow, very hardy down to -20°C, it prefers well-drained, poor, light soils. It brings lovely brightness to borders and also finds its place in informal hedges or rockeries.

Lovely contrast between Cotinus Golden Spirit’s bright foliage and its wispy pink flowering.

• To learn more, discover our complete dossier “Cotinus or Wig Tree: planting, pruning and growing”
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Escallonia laevis 'Gold Ellen'

Well known to Breton and English gardeners, Escallonia is an evergreen bush, ideal for forming hedging in coastal locations. Escallonia laevis ‘Gold Ellen’ stands out from other varieties, whose leaves are generally glossy dark green, thanks to superb evergreen golden-yellow foliage maculate with green. It forms a dense shrub with a rounded habit, as tall as it is wide, reaching 2 m to 2.50 m at maturity. In summer, fleshy, carmine-pink flowers borne at the tip of each branching open above luxuriant foliage. This handsome glossy, leathery foliage, aromatic when crushed, persists in winter and brightens garden year-round. Easy to grow, it thrives in ordinary, fresh, well-drained soil in full sun and sheltered from drafts. It can be planted at back of border or on a terrace; an excellent bush for evergreen hedging, left untrimmed or pruned.

Vivid pink flowering of Escallonia Gold Ellen contrasts well with its golden foliage.

• For full details on this attractive bush and how to grow it successfully in garden, discover our comprehensive guide: “Escallonia: planting, pruning and maintenance”
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Physocarpus 'Angel Gold'

This new variety of Physocarpus with Obier-like leaves combines ornamental qualities. This Physocarpus ‘Angel Gold’ brings a lovely touch of golden light to borders or informal hedges! Indeed, this variety is remarkable for the colouring of its leaves. Its deciduous foliage dresses in coppery yellow in spring, then turns golden yellow in autumn. A very luminous colour it retains until late season, transforming this bush into a sunny mass visible from afar in the garden. It is an attractive bush with a bushy habit, very decorative for its colourful lobed foliage, its bark that exfoliates in winter, and also for a pretty pink-white flowering in May–June, followed by small pale red decorative fruits lasting into autumn.

Its growth is rapid and its mature size can reach 3 m in height by 2 m in width. Fully hardy, it prefers deep, humus-bearing, rich and cool soils, tolerating slightly dry and calcareous soils. It thrives in partial shade or in a position not exposed to strong sun. It also makes a striking feature when planted in a container on a terrace or balcony.

Brighten your garden with Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Angel Gold’.

• To find out everything about this bush and how to grow it successfully in the garden, see our advice sheet: “Physocarpus, physocarpus with Obier-like leaves – Planting, pruning and care”
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Santolina 'Lemon Fizz'

Santolina ‘Lemon Fizz’ is a superb, very original new horticultural hybrid of Santolina virens, a Mediterranean shrub, evergreen and hardy. Its lemon-yellow foliage is made up of leaves edged with small teeth and, moreover, releasing a very aromatic scent when crushed. This attractive cultivar forms a dense, very bright cushion covered in small, round pale-yellow heads in summer. This pretty rockery undershrub, hardy down to -15°C and drought-tolerant, favours arid ground and free-draining, poor, rather calcareous soil. Forming a rounded mound 30 to 40 cm in height and spread, it will bring a golden touch along paths, in small low hedges, in the middle of a rockery, in beds to cover the base of Mediterranean bushes. This variety is also very ornamental in large containers.

Santolina rosmarinifolia ‘Lemon Fizz’ displays lemon-yellow foliage.

• To learn all about this bush and grow it successfully in the garden, discover our advice sheet :“Santoline: planting, caring for, pruning”
• Discover our beautiful range of Santolinas: our Santolina selection

Spiraea vanhouttei 'Gold Fountain'

Spirea is a bush valued for its generous spring or summer flowering, elegant compact habit and dense diamond-shaped foliage, green or sometimes yellow on golden spirea. The Spiraea vanhouttei ‘Gold Fountain’, also called “Van Houtte golden spirea”, sports golden-yellow foliage from spring, turning acid green in summer and yellow-orange in autumn. This light, graceful bush becomes covered in countless small, pure-white flower clusters in mid-summer, equally attractive. It is a cultivar of more modest size than other spireas, not exceeding 1.50 m in any direction, with a nicely trailing habit, easy to prune. Hardy to about -20°C, Spirea grows in non-scorching sun or partial shade in any well-drained ordinary soil. It is easy to use as a specimen, in an informal hedge or in a mixed border with other bushes with summer flowering.

Spirea Gold Fountain

• To learn all about the different species and how to grow them, discover our complete guide: “Spireas: planting, pruning and maintenance”
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Sambucus racemosa Lemony Lace

Elder, Sambucus in Latin, is a handsome deciduous bush bearing scented umbels, whose horticultural varieties display attractive, distinctive foliage. Like this elder ‘Lemony Lace’, with finely incised, laciniate foliage, light, very luminous, as graphic as Japanese maple! Deeply divided, intensely radiant, its leaves take on a lemon-yellow, almost fluorescent hue in spring before turning chartreuse green in summer.

With its laciniate, golden leaves, it will create a sophisticated scene and add a touch of exoticism to your garden. Early flowering, before leaf emergence, in white umbels in spring, transforms at end of summer into clusters of very decorative red berries that contrast well with golden foliage. This variety shows a bushy habit, with a slightly soft silhouette and forms a feathery, very airy mass, up to 1.50 m tall and wide, easy to fit into any garden, even smallest. It withstands down to -25°C, tolerates any type of well-drained soil, even chalky, and thrives in sun or partial shade. Sunny, light, graphic, undemanding, it fits into a shrub border, near an entrance, and grows well in a large pot or container.

Lemony Lace laciniate-leaved elder

• To learn more about different varieties and how to succeed with them in the garden, discover our tips in our fact sheet: “Elder: planting, growing, pruning”
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