Every garden needs a ninebark — here are 7 to try

Flowers are to new gardeners as glitter is to a second-grader. As gardeners get more seasoned, they learn to love foliage. Don’t get me wrong – as my seed bank and dahlia bills attest, I love flowers. But while most perennial flowers are showy for weeks or up to two months for stalwarts like black-eyed Susans, foliage persists over months or even all year for evergreen perennials and shrubs, offering the most bang for your design buck. 

It may not be evergreen, but Physocarpus, or ninebark (pronounced “nine-bark”), delivers one of the best foliage shows year-round for Pacific Northwest gardens. I find them fascinating at every stage in their development – as the colorful leaf tips emerge and unfurl, the buds opening to lacy caps of white summer flowers, followed by fall berries for the birds, and then the striped, peeling bark comes into its own in winter. The lobed leaves look a bit like those of flowering currant but come in colors rivaling smokebush (cotinus) and heuchera and make great additions to floral arrangements.

If you have space, P. capitatus is a green-leafed Pacific Northwest native that can reach 12 feet tall, but most of the colorful cultivars in nurseries are cultivars of P. opulfolius (“opulent foliage”), which is native to eastern North America.

Ninebarks like consistent moisture and full sun to partial shade. It took a while for me to get P. “Center Glow” established in a rather tough section; it has an obstructed view seat facing the house and competes with a neighbor’s bay laurel hedge for water. Now its juicy copper tones set off its plant neighbors beautifully, from golden Choisya “Gold Finger” to steely blue-leafed Rosa glauca to the purple flowers of Centaurea montana. It starts out amber with gold glints and matures to burgundy in autumn.

Until now, the only thing stopping me from filling my yard with ninebarks was their size. Generally, they run about 5 to 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide and need no pruning. They are occasionally troubled by powdery mildew, so allow some elbow room for air circulation. Having caught the attention of breeders, there are more shiny new choices to dazzle gardeners – and some are dwarf.

If you, too, have a smaller urban space, here are some diminutive ninebarks to consider:

• “Little Devil”: A shrink-rayed version of mahogany-black “Diablo,” it’s mildew resistant and adaptable to drier conditions than some. 3 to 4 feet tall and wide.
• "Tiny Wine”: Dense burgundy foliage on an upright compact shrub at 3 to 5 feet tall by 4 to 5 feet wide.
• “Tiny Wine Gold”: Golden leaves pair with white/pink flowers for a refreshing summer spritzer coming in at 3 to 5 five feet tall and wide.
• “Festivus Gold” Another chartreuse gem, this 3 to 4 foot tall and wide ninebark keeps its gleam even in full sun, unlike many gold-leafed plants.

With a little more space to spare, check out these:

• “Amber Jubilee” – The new leaves on this chameleon unfurl orange and yellow, turn green in summer, and age to red and purple in the fall.
• “Summer Wine Black” – The goth ninebark, with near-black foliage and an upright habit, 5 to 6 feet x 5 to 6 feet.
• “Ginger Wine” – Pumpkin orange spring foliage caramelizes to burgundy in fall, 5-7 feet tall x 4 to 6 feet wide.

Try one of these trouble-free, quietly show-stopping shrubs in your garden; you’ll be glad you did.