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Virginia Gardening

How tall is your Canyon Creek Abelia?

15 years ago

I'd like to plant this Abelia, but I need to know how tall it really grows. Michael Dirr at the U of GA says it grows 4 to 6 tall and just as wide. He should know as he bred Rose Creek and Canyon Creek, but a few nurseries says it grows 3 to 4 in height. That's quite a difference!!

I'd like to hear from someone who actually grows it here in Virginia. I'm in central Virginia and maybe your growing conditions are similar to my own. I'm in Zone 7 near the Blue Ridge. www.pendernursery.com has the best picture I've seen of it yet. Thanks for your help.

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Comments (5)

gardener_sandy
15 years ago
I've never grown the Canyon Creek variety (mine were Edward Goucher and topped out just as advertised at 5' or so) so I can't speak from experience but the different nurseries give varying sizes for it and it will probably be a gamble. A lot depends on your soil conditions, too. Rich soil with a good amount of moisture will make just about any plant grow to it's full size at maturity but poorer conditions may stunt it (unless it's one of those that prefers poor conditions!) With the abelia, you can always prune it back if it outgrows its home but I don't know how you can be sure of it's final size.

Sorry no one has answered this for you. The question has been hanging around so long I just had to chime in and try to help a bit. Not very definitive information but maybe it was helpful.

Sandy
summerstar
Original Author
15 years ago
I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question. It seems that the Canyon Creek Abelia is not readily available here in the Charlottesville/Staunton, VA area since it's a new hybrid, so I'll be planting Edward Goucher instead. Folks at our local garden centers seem to like this variety very much. If you care to reply back, I'd like to hear about your experiences with the shrub. We'll be planting one soon.
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Pay no attention to the above remark (which doesn't really make much sense anyway). Confetti and Kaleidoscope are just different variegated cultivars of the same plants, so close enough in habit and size and growth as to be almost interchangeable. You can prune your abelia now if you like but I would still advise against shearing it. It will not want to stay sheared - that's not the way the plant grows - and you will be doing this endlessly. Just continue to cut back the long, shooting branches that appear from time to time. Confetti gets a bit larger than Kaleidoscope so if too large, you might want to consider replacing with a smaller form. You can hard prune but avoid lopping everything off at the same height. And wait until late winter or early spring for that severe an approach. Try a rejuvenation program instead....similar to the instructions offered here: 3 Prune abelia to maintain size and shape beginning in its third growing season. Select the three longest, thickest interior stems and snip them off near ground level. Continue pruning stems selected in a random, natural-looking pattern until you have removed up to one-third of the plant. To the extent possible, make the cuts on the interior of the shrub so that the pruning is not readily obvious. 4 Rehabilitate a badly overgrown abelia with drastic pruning if the alternative is removing the shrub. Cut all stems to the ground in late winter before new spring growth begins. Abelia will generally accept severe pruning and regain its normal height within several years. btw, the fully green shoots are reversions back to the original plant. Many variegated plants will do this. You should remove those as soon as you see them appear. Sunset zones are completely different from the USDA zones and measure different conditions. The Sunset zones are far more detailed.
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Yes I have Edward Goucher which has darker leaves and pink flowers (the flowers on abelias are small and not showy but the shrubs are great). I also have Frances Mason which has a yellowish cast to the foliage, I guess a little chartreuse and the flowers are lighter color and have more white but seem more prolific. All of mine are in shade/part shade. I have seen the Canyon Creek and would love to have them but nowhere to put them and don't want to get too heavy with abelias. Bees and butterflies come alot and they are trouble free.
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LOL (laughing about the cat sleeping on the shrub). Yeah, the KA shoots don't really arch gracefully. They stick straight up out of the casually rounded shrubs. Very weird. I guess I will cut them off. You are SO right about the heat/drought tolerance. I was annoyed when I got them in the ground and (literally) 2 days later, here come 100+ degree temps...in May. I was out there twice a day with pitchers of water just begging the poor things to do well. After a week or two of wilting every day at noon, they caught up and now they are just doing great. In fact, I'm surprised at how delicate they LOOK, but how tough they are turning out to be! They are in a big bed in front of my house, approaching (in a curve) an Autumn Blaze maple, from both sides. (Eventually, they will not be as colorful, in a few years when the maple starts providing more shade, but I actually like the yellow-green color just as well as I like the orangey-red color.) And, they are in front of a curve of Carissa hollies. They stand out beautifully.
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gardener_sandy
15 years ago
Glad to give a little help. I planted two as foundation plants on the western side of our house which is shaded by tall oaks. They got a bit of mid-day sun but not full sun. They did well but were a bit thin and needed frequent cutting back of the long growth to keep them in decent shape for the area. I suspect they were reaching for more light and would have done better in a sunnier location. I ended up having to take them out since they were being crowded out by shrubs I was more interested in keeping. Poor planning on my part! LOL

The only care they got besides the pruning was a couple of handfuls of all purpose fertilizer in spring and mulch. When they were just getting established I watered them during drought but after that they did fine on just rainfall. All-in-all, they were good, tough plants.

Good luck with yours. I think you will be happy with them.

Sandy
summerstar
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks much for writing your experience, Sandy. Happy gardening this year! Hope we get more rain!
gram_pat
9 years ago
I realize this reply is too late for summerstar, but maybe it will help someone else who chances upon this thread.

I planted 'Canyon Creek' two years ago expecting it to grow 3'-4' tall. On the west side of my porch where it gets pretty hot sun several hours a day, the plants are barely 2' tall and are pretty scraggly. One died and I had to replace it. On the east side of my porch, the plants get morning sun and afternoon shade. They are about 5 1/2' tall and are obscuring the Rosy Glow barberry behind them. They're gorgeous plants -- just much bigger than I expected or wanted them to be. I love them and will keep them, but I'll have to move them this fall. Maybe I can replace them with 'Rose Creek,' which is supposed to be smaller.

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