I've got three also- and they've taken on a less than pleasing aspect within the last couple of weeks. Mine are nowhere near an alkaline source. I've attributed it to the cold. This late winter/early spring decline seems to happen for me when I stretch to grow plants that are supposed to be zone 7. Last year I had a Cottoneaster Lacteus which took on a beautiful but healthy looking purplish cast for the winter, but when spring rolled around the old leaves dropped and nothing else emerged. I'm expecting better for my loropetalum, though.
Have your soil tested if that's a concern, but hopefully, they will recover with the warmer weather.

PS: I am particularly fond of red-purple and orange combos as well. Ever grow Bengal Tiger Cannas? You get orange flower, purple flower stalks and of course the yellow and green foliage.
I'm also probably going to be obtaining Fargesia 'Scabrida' at some point. Its a small clumping bamboo and you get orange culm sheaths atop purplish canes. Its a newer bamboo so pretty pricey, but should become cheaper in years to come.

Thanks for the reassuring words, hoe hoe hoe! I hope you're right and that they will recover. I just moved a different new shrub today out of the dog yard (the dogs must've known that I was typing about them), so that option doesn't look too good.

Would love to hear others' thoughts on loropetalum care as well - when I searched, I found mostly discussions about types, suggestions for companions, pruning and blooming...but not about leaves looking somewhat unhappy.

Re: red-purple and orange, thanks for the suggestions! I'm not up to cannas and bamboos yet (am working mostly on shrubs right now)... But I've a well-loved picture of Helenium Moerheim Beauty that just makes me happy every time I look at it -- when I get to planting perennials, I've got to find a spot for those!

Thanks again!

I do not consider the loropetalum fully hardy even here in western Zone 8. The cotoneaster I have seen go black and die down after a record winter here. I wouldn't recommend either for Zone 6, definitely wonder about Zone 7.

Ok, this has been a humbling experience. Sure enough, I've gotten my answers, although not the ones or in the way that I expected.

Thanks, bboy for going back to the zone issue. Here's what happened - confused about how I could be so wrong about the zone, I looked up the plant profile in the Monrovia database and, lo and behold, there are razzleberri's leaves : new growth burgundy, maturing to an olive green. There were pictures, too, and they look more or less like my plant that is doing the best. Duh. You GW people were very kind not to point out that I was posing a "question" about normal growth! And I've learned that I need to look at pictures in all seasons instead of look at references that say things like, some types have green leaves and some have purple.

I feel like a total idiot, except that I learned something. Both previous posters were right, loropetalum is allegedly hardy to z7 although they were for sale ALL over my area last year which must have made me think that they would survive here. Now I've learned that I have to make up my mind what "survive" means: I didn't realize that it could have meant, it will look ratty for awhile -- I thought it basically meant that I would have a dead stick in the ground.

Anyway, I won't count on them to work where they are. (That's really valuable information because I put them in hoping that they would be structural, and I was going to work around their delightful colors this year.)

Probably I bought the things in the first place because they changed color through the seasons (I like stuff like that) and then forgot about it. I definitely need more memory medicine. I also am going to stop suspecting my poor retaining walls of leaching...at least, that's probably not the explanation this time. Why I felt the need to make up such a weird explanation without having discovered the real answer first will be a mystery I will carry till, well, I'm much older.

YOu know, I"m not sure I would ever have figured out all these things (at least so quickly) in any other way. And they were really bothering me. So, thanks. I"m demoting myself to being a real newbie and going back into hiding now - maybe I"ll surface again when I have an actual question!

Corylopsis, you are being WAY too hard on yourself! If you want to make a change- fine, thats a big part of gardening.
However, if you have them planted in the corner of a brick wall, you can rightly expect to stretch the zones- unless the corner is downhill where it might actually cradle cold air and create a frost pocket. Also, if you only planted them last fall, its reasonable to expect they might suffer more damage in the first years. Lots of plants become "hardier" once they have a few years to become established. I think this is the second winter for mine and, overall, i don't think they look bad, and they are in the wide open.
But- if you are looking for the SURE bet and your goal is flawlessness maybe something else IS in order.
However, just to give yourself a taste of gardening on the wild side- you might try the new dwarf loropetalum. Can't think of the name, but it shouldnt take up too much room and at least you'll be able to say- YES! I can grow that here!
A word about availability. I see MANY MANY offerings at places like Lowes, Home Depot and Walmart that are only marginally hardy for my area. Occassionally, a few even sneak into the independent gardening centers. At the big box stores, the less than hardier selections sometimes even seem to outnumber the reliable stuff. I think it may have something to do with a regional approach to stocking, but I don't know.
As to leaching- it DOES happen. I don't know a great deal about it or how incredible the impact, which is why I said get your soil tested if it was a concern, but I thought I would speak to my experience with this plant in zone 6.
Whatever you decide- Good Luck!
Im going to be researching the 'Moerheim Beauty'.

P.S. One of my FAVORITE plants is Eriobotrya japonica. This was its THIRD winter here and it has grown like an absolute weed. I brought it back from a vacation in FLorida because I knew it wouldn't be found here. I think it does wonderfully. I have it against the South facing brick wall of my home and it has come thru with less leaf damage each year and by the time spring growth commences whatever damage does occur (minimal anyway) is totally concealed. I love looking out my window at it during the winter.

I have had these for several years and this is what I have noticed. During the winter when the plant is not growing, the leaves tend to turn a yellowish-green. When Spring comes and the plant starts growing again, the new leaves are purple. Sometimes the degree of sun/shade will also have an effect on the leaf color. Right now, my lorapetalums are in the yellow/green phase (except for the one that is in mostly shade) but they are completely covered in pink fringe flowers (except for the one in the shade~lol).

With marginal plants it's always a matter of how long a term of survival is acceptable to the gardener. Periodic replacement of comparatively cheap and readily available selections may not be considered overly burdonsome if these provide interest not thought to be available from other, more or less fully hardy selections. On the other hand, it does seem a shame to have a choice plant grow for years, become a nice big specimen and then die in a hard winter--especially if it was also a scarce and expensive one.

Being an enthusiast I tend to be more in favor of others here taking chances with novelties than sticking with the same old stuff you see over and over. I think the Sunset WESTERN GARDEN BOOK (2001, Sunset Publishing) has a good take on how to look at garden plant hardiness in my little slice of USDA 8:

"...big freezes do considerable damage when they come very early or very late, when plants are not conditioned for that kind of cold. And while these occasional disasters clear the slate of most borderline plants, they should not serve as a general gauge of plant hardiness there."

Catalogs and gardeners vary in how they interpret hardiness zones, often they do not understand what the USDA zone temperature ranges refer to. Catalogs may not even explicitly state that they are using the USDA system.

"...plant hardiness here."

Hi everyone - I'm back and so encouraged and grateful for the continued responses. You're teaching me a lot about the way to think, in so many ways. I'm grateful!

Not to say that I don't go around the 'big box' stores, but I also go to every independent nursery I can find. (And I make all these rounds as often as I can - especially when spring fever hits.) Do you think that the independent nurseries mostly do a better job at showing plants that are hardy for the area, then? I was wondering about that. I've also seen plants offered at independent nurseries that I've read (again, no actual experience) might be invasive - without any warnings, and I wondered about why they would do that, too.

In any case, I mostly wanted to write back to thank people for taking the edge off my feeling so stupid. Thanks!

PS I found some neat pictures of the other plants mentioned. The Bengal tiger canna is so dramatic - what great leaves! And the Eriobotrya japonica has value in all seasons - I loved the bark! Do you eat the fruit or does it splat? One picture had it planted next to a mahonia for textural contrast. Learning about new plants makes me happy again. ..

"In any case, I mostly wanted to write back to thank people for taking the edge off my feeling so stupid"....

Gardening is a learning process: no matter how much you know, there is always something to learn. The goal is to have fun while you do it!!

Loquats aren't very hardy, sometimes they even collapse here in western USDA 8.

Well, the loquat was cheap and has been EXTREMELY fast growing. It has survived three winters, but if it collapses, I'll just get another. Based on my experience, I would HIGHLY recommend others experiment with it. Based on my experience with C. Lacteus, I would probably not recommend it to another, though I might be willing to try it again myself at some point.

As to your question on fruit, Corylopsis, unfortunately my zone 6b prohibits that. Loquats develop their fruit during the winter wherever it is that they truly "belong" and its just too cold for THAT here.

Is seems to me that a reputable independent really shouldn't carry shrubs that are not hardy in that zone. If they are there, its probably a boo boo which hopefully they have caught and made clear for potential buyers. As for potential invasives- yes, I do see them in even what I consider to be my "better" area nurseries. My brain isn't pliable enough to wrap itself around THAT issue tonight, though. I'll sometimes find perennials for warmer zones along with the annuals, but assuming they can do something dramatic in one season and are not being quietly sold at full price well past their show, I don't have a problem with that since they are being marketed as "annuals".

Amen to garden graphic gal! There are two kinds of gardeners I frequently encounter: Those that continue growing and finding their way right along with the plants that surround them. And those that have been girdled and stunted by this, that and the other set of stakes and devices intended merely to start them on their way. Luckily, the vast majority seem to be of the first type. When a plant dies hopefully it becomes beneficial compost. When a true gardener encounters "failure" hopefully it just spurs him or her on to a new idea.

Mostly what's needed is for plants to be labeled/signed with reasonable hardiness expectation and for shoppers to read it, know what conditions they have on their lot. Or look something they are interested in up in books at the store to get a feeling for what to expect from it.

Many places have few people on staff who really know the full range of plants being offered. If a grower's catalog puts the wrong zone on something it gets ordered for the wrong area. Out here in western half, with our mountainous topography the USDA map is a joke anyway--they have coastal zones going right over high mountains and down the other side. Other factors affect hardiness besides average annual minimum temperature, too, so that a plant that matures and overwinters in the hot part of Zone 8 in the Gulf States may fail here in the cooler summer PNW.

Bboy, those maps were obviously drawn up with all the seismic lines taken into consideration. Sorry. Bad joke- bad, bad joke. God, don't strike me down.

Seriously, microclimates DO exist EVERYWHERE- like the South facing side of my brick home where I grow my Loquat, but I do know that the terrain out West is very diverse. Hope to see it in person some day. Most shrubs sold at a nursery though should be suitable for planting in the not too distant vicinity of the nursery's location WITHOUT the artifical extra heat of a brick home's exterior. I'm not saying I don't ever shop at the Big Box stores, but I've really stopped expecting them to get much of anything right.

There is NO replacement for a gardener's own behind the scenes research- however, I view the knowledge of the staff as a major indication of a nursery's reputabilty. You ought to know what you sell by in large. Sure, you may have a few grunts loading and unloading things off of a truck or people who have just begun to get their feet wet, but there should be SOMEONE present who has some idea of the plant you are asking about or has the ability to summons someone else who does ASAP. They should also have good reference books ON HAND because, obviously, no one can know everything. And I don't think I'm a snob about latin names, but if I go to A NURSERY and the person in charge of shrubs doesn't know what "Prunus laurocerasus" is when they've been selling "Cherry Laurels" for years, I will be extremely leery and take any info I gather there with half a grain of salt. I've been shocked by nursery owners who obviously couldn't explain the difference between a genus, a species and a cultivar if they had to. Not that I've ever directly asked someone to do so- I never set out to embarass someone, but I will find subtle ways of "testing the water" if I wind up at a strange nursery and feel like maybe gambling on a plant that I am less familiar with.

Okay- so maybe my post today doesnt sound as forgiving as my post of last night. Maybe I should have said last night that their are two kinds of "hobbyist gardeners". There should only be ONE kind of nurseryman, though- SEASONED ones with sponge-like brains! LOL.

There's 'Ought To' and 'Should Be' and then there's 'Is'. 'Is' is what we have to deal with in our daily lives. Nobody 'Ought To' run into us with their cars either.

Shop Defensively.

I'm fascinated by these messages - all these pearls of wisdom keep coming out. I'm spurred on to try and be in that first category of gardeners!

By the way, I looked at my picture of Helenium Moorheim Beauty (in a Rosemary Verey book) and it is paired with Hemerocallis 'Missenden'.

Bboy, since you're up in Washington, I wonder if you would weigh in with some opinions on Astrantia major? I grew them in Illinois when I lived there - a very pretty plant, but they didn't spread much or bloom too profusely there in the short (3 years or so) that I had them. Now that I've started over in Tennessee, I'd like them again, but would love to get more out of them than I did before. Any tips? What about you, Hoe hoe hoe?

Remember, I started off with this as a first posting, so let me know if there are any problems with going off topic like this. Seems to have been ok so far. :)

Common and easy here, various kinds available now. Maybe it doesn't like eastern summers.

hoe hoe hoe,

My loropetalum are doing much better. I fed them acid this spring just in case, thanks to some advice on a different forum. (by the way, that is the first and last time I'll post in 2 places!)

I found a place that seems to sell the loquat online, called ecolage. Maybe that'll be my brave new experiment some other year. At least I'll be aware of the concept of zone pushing. :) In any case, if I could save you a trip down to Florida in exchange for your encouragement...

bboy, you were right. I ordered the astrantia and they're doing fine. (so far) no disasters will be logged into my permanent record!

thanks again for the advice as I make my way toward being a slightly more experienced gardener

cheers

Thought I'd post an update for the archives...it's one year later and I haven't moved any of the loropetalum. They're finishing up a spectacular 3 week bloom in their original spots! The one with a little bit of afternoon shade (and a little more wet) bloomed the most beautifully. I still saw those weird yellow-green leaves this spring (especially on those in full sun) but, thanks to Garden Web, I didn't panic.

It was a very mild winter and the plants were all given favored sheltered spots - but they're surviving. With this kind of vibrant early bloom, I'd be tempted to replace them if they died.

All the other deciduous shrubs planted against my then-new full sun brick wall (including viburnums, philadelphus, abelia, a cotinus, a kolwitzia) made it through. (I should hasten to add that I've got decent soil right next to the wall - the two poor yews a short distance away didn't make it...for them, it was like being planted IN concrete, not next to it. Too bad we couldn't afford to improve the dirt in the entire clay-packed yard.)

Many thanks again to all the posters who reassured and taught me last spring - and I'm over and out from middle Tennessee.