Caryopteris 'Pink Chablis' - hardiness warning

Post by **Chris_W** » Jul 21, 2006 10:46 am

Have you seen this new plant in the Wayside Catalog? Well, we started these last year and none survived the winter - and it was a very mild winter here.

We buried them deeply in 3 different locations. One spot was in a raised bed and the soil below is a mix of sand and gravel. The drainage there is excellent. The second spot was on a hill - again there is sand and gravel, and the slope helps with drainage. The third location was in rich soil with fairly good drainage, planted next to Caryopteris 'Summer Sorbet'.

All of the plants were blooming last year, grew about 2' tall, and were beautiful. Not a single plant showed any signs in the least of coming back. We had planted 50 of them.

Most references put this as hardy to zone 6b. Wayside Gardens is advertising it as zone 5. Based on our experience and given the very mild winter we had I would put this closer to a zone 7 hardiness.

If anyone else has experience with it let me know, I would be interested in hearing about it.

Chris

John · Post by **John** » Jul 21, 2006 10:56 am

Wayside is in zone-denial, often showing a zone colder than realistic. Maybe it is a problem with numbers, as their prices often seem to have the decimal point in the wrong place as well.

I've not grown the C. you ask about, Chris, only the blue ones in the past. There is a magnificent double hedge of them at Longwood gardens (pictured in Wayside catalogue sometimes); it is accented with a few yellow fall-blooming flowers, perhaps Sternbergia, looking like yellow crocus.

Tigger · Post by **Tigger** » Jul 21, 2006 11:37 am

Intersting to note that RareFind Nursery, where I visited recently, has a number of interesting caryopteris selections but not this one. They're at the 6a/6b border.

We replaced our 'Longwood Blue' this year with 'First Choice.' So far I'm not impressed, but maybe they're just taking their time getting settled in.

Post by **Chris_W** » Jul 21, 2006 11:42 am

Thanks for the feedback. That cracks me up John about the decimal point too

I forgot to mention that Caryopteris 'Petite Blue' was (is) planted right next to one of the spots where we put 'Pink Chablis' and 100% of the Petite Blue came back with no dieback.

The other caryopteris we grow that has never failed on us after several years is Worchester Gold. And Summer Sorbet has survived 2 winters with little dieback. I love the variegation on that one.

Chris

mrg · Post by **mrg** » Jul 23, 2006 5:45 am

Chis, I tried growing a few of the same caryopteris and experienced the same results here on the border of zones 5 and 6. Sunshine Blue returned with vigor as did C. divaricata 'Snow Fairy'.

Primroselane · Post by **Primroselane** » Jul 23, 2006 4:43 pm

I have found that if I try to plant one in the fall it will not survive, here they have to be planted in the spring, the gold one hung in there for a few years and then just died off in the winter. I use to love that one. One I had just seeded itself all over the place, but they were never true to the original plant.