Abelia x grandiflora Sunny Charm MINDUO1

Abelia x grandiflora Sunny Charms 'MINDUO1' is an original and charming novelty, awarded at Plantarium in 2014. This variety of abelia, of modest size, seduces with the unusual colour of its countless small fragrant flowers in warm and soft tones, combining a straw-yellow heart with a powdery pink reverse. Its long and abundant, fragrant flowering gives way in autumn to a rich mantle of persistent coppery bracts. Easy to grow and undemanding, this very beautiful bush with a compact and rounded habit is ideal in a small garden or planted in a pot on the terrace.

The Abelia x grandiflora Sunny Charms 'MINDUO1' is a bush from the caprifoliaceae family, derived from the Abelia x grandiflora, a vigorous, undemanding, and hardy bush. Of moderately fast growth, Sunny Charms will reach approximately 1m (3.28 ft) in all directions. Its habit is compact, rounded, and bushy. This abelia offers a long fragrant flowering that lasts all summer, from July to September-October, when few bushes are in bloom. Its countless small funnel-shaped corollas, 2.5cm (1in) wide, with a light yellow throat with yellow-orange and a powdery pink reverse, are gathered in terminal panicles. As the flowers fade, they give way to pretty compound calyxes of rust-coloured bracts which are very decorative with the autumn foliage. The arching branches of the abelia bear semi-evergreen, dark green, glossy foliage, until summer. The ovate and dentate leaves are 5cm (2in) long. Under the effect of the first cool nights, they take on a purplish hue, tinged with dark pink, and persist for a long time on the branches.

This large-flowered abelia can be planted in groups with other small bushes, alone, or in a large pot. You can plant it in a perennial border as well as in a small informal or pruned hedge. As a companion in a flowering hedge, you can choose Kolwitzia amabilis, Deutzia, Syringa microphylla 'Superba', bush roses with single flowers, or Buddleia alternifolia 'Argentea'.