Glossy Abelia
The hardiest and most free-flowering of the abelias, this hybrid makes an effective specimen, informal hedge, or mass planting, combining particularly well with broad-leafed evergreens. Showy, pinkish white flowers cover the plant from July until frost. The fine-textured, glossy,deep green summer foliage turns an attractive bronze in the fall. It is deciduous to semievergreen in the North and increasingly evergreen the farther south it is grown. The habit is graceful, rounded, and arching. It grows at a medium to fast rate, reaching 4 to 8 feet high and wide.
Give glossy abelia well-drained soil, medium shade to full sun, and average watering, and it will prove to be an easy-to-grow, pest-free plant. In dense shade, the habit is leggy and flowering is sparse. Expect frequent winter die-back in northern Zone 6, although the new growth will come back quickly. Older, overgrown shrubs can be renewed by cutting back hard, almost to the ground, in late winter or early spring. While glossy abelia can be sheared easily into formal shapes, doing so seriously reduces flowering. It is probably best to allow it to achieve its graceful, natural shape.
Lower forms, such as ‘Prostrate’ and ‘Sherwoodii’, make excellent large-scale ground covers and bank covers.
