This flowering standard will provide you with year round interest, with its attractive glossy, dark green spiny foliage and fragrant spikes of yellow flowers in the depths of winter. Attractive grape-like clusters of deep purple berries follow the flowers. It prefers a shady spot.
Mahonia x media ‘Winter Sun’ is small to medium-sized evergreen shrub capable of growing ten feet tall and five feet wide. It becomes a prized specimen when it blooms in the late fall or early winter, producing fragrant yellow flowers. These inflorescences develop into clusters of waxy blue berries eaten by many bird species. Mahonia has pinnately compound leaves with spiny dark green leaflets and a whorled branch arrangement.
Mahonia species are often referred to as Oregon grape-holly. This common name comes from the Pacific Northwest native, Mahonia aquifolium, and while the genus superficially resembles hollies (Ilex sp.) they are not closely related. Mahonia belongs to the barberry family, Berberidaceae.
Mahonia × media is an interspecific hybrid and its parent species are Mahonia lomariifolia and Mahonia japonica, both of which are native to Taiwan and China.