Leucothoe keiskei 'ROYAL RUBY'

Leucothoe belongs to relatively new plants which gain more and more attention and admirers. They are low or prostrate evergreen shrubs with leathery leaves and sufficient hardiness.

Royal Ruby is a leucothoe variety that can be used as an attractive groundcover with larger leaves. They are elongated, glossy, and green in summer, gaining burgundy red shades at the leaf margins, and from colder days of autumn completely changing to deep burgundy red for the whole of winter. This colour stays until mid or end spring until the plant starts making new leaves. Thanks to its rich winter colour placing a stone near it or planting it in front of a stone fence or wall can be most pretty for the best contrast.

It forms a rather prostrate shrub with arching branches. For a denser plant you may trim the branches in mid spring but it is not necessary. It grows medium fast. Royal Ruby bears plentiful of tiny creamy white flowers in spring.

Leucothoes grow naturally in woodlands under trees which means that they are used to anything from filtered sun to deep shade. However, in our tests they proved to live happily in full sun, too, if given sufficient moisture.

As an ericaceous plant it requires soil that is light, acidic, and constantly moist (not wet). If your garden soil is too heavy do not dig a deep hole but make a shallow and wide bed topped up with a good mixture of peat, fine bark chips, and leaf (forest) litter. Keep the soil moist by mulching. Slow-release fertilizers are advised. This variety is extremely hardy for a leucothoe down to min. -27°C (USDA zone 5b), and is suitable for growing in outdoor pots.

Last update 20-11-2008; 06-01-2010; 24-02-2012