Symphoricarpos chenaultii Brain de Soleil

The Syphoricarpos chenaultii 'Brain de Soleil' is a French variety and fairly recent cultivar of the Chenault's Snowberry. It is a mutation of the famous cultivar 'Hancok', with golden foliage and orange young shoots. Interesting for a good part of the year, adorned with beautiful colors in autumn and small white berries in winter, this deciduous, prostrate bush ultimately forms a robust and hardy ground cover that can withstand almost anything, but its growth can be easily controlled. This snowberry, with its warm and changing colors, proves to be valuable for greening difficult areas of the garden such as the understory of large trees or a sunny but slightly dry slope.

The Symphoricarpos x chenaultii belongs to the caprifoliaceae family, just like honeysuckles. This deciduous bush, discovered in Orléans in 1910 by R. Chenault, is a spontaneous hybrid between the Symphoricarpos microphyllus and S. orbiculatus, both native to the United States and Mexico. 'Hancock', found in Canada in 1950, is a prostrate form with beautiful vigor. In 2003, in Maine-et-Loire, 'Hancock' gave birth to a luminous cultivar with golden leaves through mutation, which was named 'Brain de Soleil'.

This snowberry has a low habit, both bushy, ramified, dense, and spreading. The bush is capable of lateral spreading through suckers and spontaneous layering, with its stems easily rooting upon contact with the soil. Where they interfere, they can be easily pulled out. Slow-growing, it reaches about 50-60 cm (20-24in) in height and 1.50 m (5ft) to 2 m (7ft) in width at maturity. In spring, the young shoots of 'Brain de Soleil' have a beautiful orange color. Then the stems turn yellow and develop small leaves 1 cm (<1in) to 1.5 cm (1in) long and 0.8 cm (<1in) to 1 cm (<1in) wide, of a golden yellow color that becomes more chartreuse in summer or in shade before turning coppery orange at the end of the season. Flowering takes place in the second half of May, in the form of small discreet flowers that are more or less white, greenish, and pink. It is followed by the formation of a few small, rather inconspicuous white berries.

Snowberries are known for their hardiness and beautiful winter fruiting. 'Brain de Soleil' will be appreciated more for its changing and luminous foliage, and for its willingness to cover the ground at the base of hedges and under large trees. Its small size also makes it ideal for slopes or flower beds, in combination with evergreen shrubs such as conifers or dwarf bamboos, prostrate cotoneasters, or other ground cover plants like Rhus aromatica Gro-Low for example. You can even grow the Brain de Soleil snowberry in a large pot on your terrace.