Designing with Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’

(Berberidaceae Mahonia Eurybracteata Soft Caress’ PP20183)

Fabulous textural evergreen for the shade garden unlike anything I’ve seen. Like all Mahonias it’s tough as nails, drought tolerant and evergreen. Unlike most Mahonias it is thorn less and soft to the touch. It’s an elegant shrub that can add fine texture, shine and year-round interest in your dry shady areas.

‘Soft Caress’ Mahonia won the 2015 Plant of the Year at the Chelsea Flower Show. So, you know it offers many desirable attributes for landscape design. It’s a hardy evergreen that looks fresh, interesting and glossy year-round and it’s compact 3ft size fits almost anywhere.

Landscape ideas for ‘Soft Caress’ Mahonia:

This Mahonia has feathery foliage and richly colored leaves ranging from dark blue-green to light green. It is perfectly suited for an Asian themed garden. Try it under upright Japanese Maples. The feathery foliage also compliments plants with bolder leaves like large hostas. Try Hosta’ Frances Williams’ or ‘Olive Bailey Langdon’. To bring in more color try Hydrangeas, hellebores and large heucheras like ‘Sweet Tea’ or ‘Georgia Peach’. For pops of graceful yellow try Japanese Forest grass.

A dramatic combination could include ‘Angyo Star’ Fatshedera as a low climber, Spiders Web’ Fatshedera and Acuba. Acanthus Mollis ‘Bears Breeches’. All are evergreen, have similar growing needs and would create a lush garden in shade.

For a Jurassic look try Farfugium Japonicum, Gunnera, or if your site has a boggy area try Darmera Peltata. Just be sure to site the Mahonia in the drier area. It doesn’t like standing water.

There are many Rodgersia varieties that would be bold perennial companions with large flower stalks.

For interesting groundcovers try Epimediums. There are many choices with different colored flowers, evergreen or deciduous and some with bold leaves. Ajuga genevensis ‘Carpet Bugle’ Flowers all Summer with gentian- blue 6-12” flower spikes. This variety is NOT invasive or stoloniferous like the common Ajuga Reptans. It forms a dense matting mound to about 2 feet wide. Very useful along pathways or front of the border. It would look nice surrounding your Mahonia.

Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’ looks wonderful in containers as your thriller plant. A useful formula to create exciting containers is to include a thriller, filler and spiller. Spillers could include: Dichondra ‘Silver Falls’ or for an exciting color combination try any of the ornamental sweet potato vines.

There are a number of varieties to choose from, including:

• • My favorite- Marguerite –chartreuse, bold foliage with heart-shaped leaves.
  • Blackie – Nearly black foliage with serrated leaves creates a wonderful color contrast. It’s a vigorous grower.
  • Sweet Carolina ‘Purple’ – with dark purple foliage and smaller tubers. This variety is a less vigorous grower suitable for smaller containers.
  • Tricolor – Another less vigorous grower that has multicolored and variegated small pointy leaves of green, pink and white. Suitable for smaller containers or where you want to add other things to the container.

For a Mediterranean container that can tolerate less water, you could try a trailing variety of Rosemary.

For a filler companion to ‘Soft Caress’ Mahonia try the very dwarf, evergreen, weeping ‘Purple Pixie’ Loropelatum. It’s compact size with dark purple leaves, weeping habit and pink flowers would be a vibrant choice, suitable for year-round containers.

Other evergreen dwarfs could include ‘Little Flames Leucothoe. A very dwarf selection that forms a cute bun shape. New leaves look like little red flames. A charming dwarf evergreen with slow growth. Another dwarf, evergreen to consider, with colorful new growth is “Burning Love’ Leucothoe. It has a lacy appearance and would combine nicely with the bold leaves of ornamental sweet potatoes.

Design possibilities are endless as it’s compact enough for a container yet large enough to be used as a foundation plant. In Autumn or early Winter, bright yellow candles of flowers arise from the bamboo-like foliage and slowly develop into blue/ black berries extending the Winter display.

This Mahonia has the ability to thrive in both part sun and full shade, with virtually no maintenance. As a bonus it’s said to be deer resistant. It’s hardy in Zones 7-9

How will you use ‘Soft Caress’ Mahonia? Do you have this in your landscape? I would love to hear how you incorporate it in your design, or better yet … pictures!

Author: Stephanie Beach