There's also barberry "Crimson Pygmy" which seems to be for sale everywhere this year. From the BackyardGardener.com "Deciduous shrub reaching up to 24" tall and about 30" wide. Branches are slender, spiny, and small. Leaves are roundly oval in a deep red to purple color. 'Crimson Pygmy' is the most popular Japanese Barberry. Best located in full sun, this plant is tolerant of many types of soil, but will not do well in wet to very moist soils. As the name Barberry implies, this makes an excellent hedge or filler shrub."

Beth, These broms are the easiest to grow of any I've ever seen. I tore out a bed of them last summer (with a considerable loss of blood). Many I trashed, many I gave away, many were left, tossed off to the side of a vacant area, not planted, ignored, and a lot of those are happily blooming away today. None died. They'll grow in soil, out of soil, in sun or shade. They are colonizers, sending out pups and fill an area quickly. There's no need for a propagation area. Just snap off a pup or a slab of plants with some root and replant or give away. I do like them, and have replanted some where they won't hurt me. Keep in mind they bloom throughout the winter only, so if you want year-round color plant them near a summer bloomer. And in a spot where it won't attack you! LOL

LOL Hey, Marlon. [g] I think you have more drive to have new and different than I do. I ripped out everything in my back*yard because it was old, overgrown and were full sun plants that were now in too much shade. So we started over again six years ago, so basically everything was new and different to me since then. Still, I could very easily be searching the catalogs every year for something new and different, except that I've already gotten burned a few times with 'new' plants that failed to live up to expectations. I've grown to distrust the hype of hybridizers. I was dying for some different colored echinaceas and after buying expensive plants two years in a row that didn't survive the winter, I gave up on that. I find things that others find boring, make me quite happy. Like Hollies, that someone mentioned are boring to them. I had a book out of the library by Beth Chatto about woodland gardens and she had some magnificent hollies and very attractive combinations with surrounding shrubs and perennials. Just loved them. I also always wanted to have hollies that I could harvest branches and berries for C*hristmas decorations every year. I was out today looking at the hollies in the yard and I like everything about them. The shiny healthy leaves, The berries just starting to form. The way they respond so well to tip pruning. The dependability and predictability. I feel happy just looking at them. lol The other thought is that some of these plants that get overused and boring get that way for a reason. They are so easy to grow, so dependable to bloom, so healthy and pest free. If you are not always having success with things that you grow, then you try to look for things that will. Successfully growing anything is often exciting in and of itself. :-)

A sport is a part of a plant that shows significant differences from the rest of the plant. This most commonly occurs because of a spontaneous genetic mutation in one part of the plant. A sport of a Calamondin will still be a Calamondin in that it is nearly genetically identical, but a sport is not a particular variety of Calamondin. It may be different in a variety of ways. -Brett