Escallonia Glowing Embers

The 'Glowing Embers' hybrid Escallonia is a beautiful new variety, notable for the changing colours of its luminous foliage. This small evergreen bush starts the year adorned with young red-orange leaves, as summer arrives they turn amber-yellow, serving as a backdrop to magnificent fuchsia-pink flowers. Gradually, they take on a shiny light green hue. This round and compact bush is interesting throughout the year and will be superb used in a small hedge or in a shrub bed in mild climates or by the seaside. Elsewhere, you can plant it in a pot on the terrace. Like all Escallonias, it is a rewarding bush, with fast growth, that proves to be floriferous, fragrant, and truly undemanding! 

Escallonias are excellent garden plants in mild climates belonging to the Escalloniaceae family and originate from the temperate zones of South America and Chile. In nature, these bushes grow among the undergrowth covering the hillsides or on coastal areas exposed to sea spray.

The 'Glowing Embers' Escallonia is a recent hybrid horticultural creation. The bush forms a rounded dome, with a highly branching and bushy habit, of medium to slow growth, reaching about 1m (3 ft 4 in) in height at maturity with a similar spread. The young shoots of this variety emerge red-orange, then turn golden yellow to amber-yellow as they unfurl. Its evergreen leaves are 2.5cm (1 in) long, leathery, alternate, ovate, with dentate edges, ranging from medium to light green, and very shiny. Flowering takes place from June to August, for about two months, earlier or later depending on the climate, sometimes as early as May in hot climates. A short cluster composed of small five-petaled tubular bell-shaped flowers, enclosed at the base in a purplish pink calyx, appears at the tip of some branches.

Escallonias are excellent substitutes for Weigelas in mild climates by the seaside, as well as in dry gardens. 'Glowing Embers' will bring a luminous touch to your shrub beds. Its modest stature is well-suited for small gardens but also for container cultivation to adorn terraces and balconies. Well-known to gardeners in Brittany, Ireland, and England, Escallonia is also comfortable in Mediterranean climates, after careful planting and regular watering for the first two or three years. It will tolerate heat and dry summers once established, or slightly chalky soils, and manages to flower even in scorching or shaded situations. It is essential in coastal gardens: its flowering, just like that of Olearias, brightens up the grey foliage of Atriplex, Bupleurum fruticosum, or Correa alba rosea, for example. In a shrub bed, it can be associated with cistus, Polygala, Indigofera, Grevillea (in neutral to acidic soil), or even with spring-flowering shrubs like compact evergreen Ceanothus, brooms (Cytisus scoparius), or Loropetalum chinense.