Chinese Fringe Flower Loropetalum chinense Plum Gorgeous

Plum Gorgeous is the upright, shrub sized end of the Loropetalum range: a layered plant with small rounded leaves set along near horizontal, arching branches. The foliage is the point, holding deep plum to burgundy through the year in good light, and in spring the plant covers itself in fringed flowers built from narrow strappy petals in hot pink to magenta, with scattered flushes afterwards in milder districts. It is used as an informal flowering hedge, as a dark colour break between green shrubs, and as cover on a bank.

Sun is what makes the leaf dark

It grows well in temperate and subtropical gardens from Melbourne to Brisbane and is a favourite on Sydney clay soils, provided the ground drains. Loropetalum sits in the witch hazel family and wants acidic, free draining soil with organic matter through it, low to moderate water once established, and anything from part shade to full sun. Space plants around 800mm apart for an informal hedge and let the layers overlap. The failure mode is light, and it is the most common complaint about dark leaved forms. Grown in real sun the foliage holds plum and burgundy; grown in shade, or on the shaded side of a fence, it drifts back to a muddy bronze green and the plant stops doing the one job it was bought for. Nothing you feed it will bring that colour back. Choose the position for light first and the shape second. On alkaline or builder rubble soils the new growth also comes through pale with green veins, which is an iron availability problem to fix with sulphur, an acidic mulch and compost rather than more nitrogen.

Upright shrub or spreading carpet

The direct comparison is Purple Pixie, the same species in a completely different shape. Purple Pixie stays low and weeping and spreads wider than it grows tall, so it works as a groundcover, a bank carpet or a spill over the edge of a raised pot. Plum Gorgeous grows up. Pick it when you want a shrub with presence, an informal hedge with height in it, or a dark backdrop for lighter foliage, and pick Purple Pixie when you want the same colour down at ground level. If the hedge has to be clipped to a formal face rather than left layered, Escallonia Iveyi takes shearing far better. More in hedging plants.

Tip prune, never shear

Prune after the main spring flowering, taking the tips back and thinning out any branch that has shot straight through the outline. Avoid shearing the whole surface flat, because the layered horizontal branching is what gives the shrub its character, and a sheared plant becomes a dense box with the flowers cut off. Older plants respond better to having a few of the oldest stems removed at the base than to having the whole canopy reduced. Feed in early spring with an azalea or camellia food, formulated for acid loving plants, and mulch with composted bark or pine needles to hold the soil pH down.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 3 sizes, from 180mm up to 300mm, priced from $28.95 to $99.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. These are younger plants, priced for planting in quantity, and they establish quickly once in the ground. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to hedging plants for Australian conditions.