From the Waterwise plant sale in spring 2019
Aronia 'Lowscape Mound'
From Bluestone Perennials in spring 2021
Aronia 'Ground Hug' from Garden Crossings in spring 2023
'Iriquois Beauty' only grows to 3 feet high, but spreads out. Flowers are beautiful in spring. It can take dry soil and some shade. It wants enriched soil.
The 'Briliantissima' Aronia arbutifolias that I had in Connecticut were tall and very open, quite leggy. Fall color was muted red. The red berries were nice in winter, but it was a plant that needed to be surrounded by other things, not a specimen shrub.
This black-berried Aronia melanocarpa looks like it will be quite low and shrubby and compact. Fall color is red.
Expectations:
Lowscape Mound is a tidy small bun of a plant with glossy green leaves. It has all the same characteristics of the taller, leggier aronias, including red fall color I hope. This is what Lowscape Mound should look like eventually:
'Iriquois Beauty' only grows to 3 feet high, but spreads out. Flowers are beautiful in spring. It can take dry soil and some shade. It wants enriched soil.
The 'Briliantissima' Aronia arbutifolias that I had in Connecticut were tall and very open, quite leggy. Fall color was muted red. The red berries were nice in winter, but it was a plant that needed to be surrounded by other things, not a specimen shrub.
This black-berried Aronia melanocarpa looks like it will be quite low and shrubby and compact. Fall color is red.
Experiences:
Lowscape Mound was planted in front, under the pine to be seen from the front slider. But it got stomped and broken in its first year and when I dug it up in spring 2022 it was just a dried out twig. Under the pines is a tough spot.
I moved it to richer soil in the new birdbath garden fronting some rocks. Later moved it again in 2023 to the front of the dining room window garden, by the bridge. It got eaten to the ground by rabbits. Sigh.
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| Lowscape Mound, transplanted again in 2023. Fall color! |
Moved it again in 2024 to a spot under the Peggy Martin rose. It's only an inch tall now with about seven tiny leaves.
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| August 2023 |
Iriquois Beauty was planted between the aspen trees in the dining room window garden where the New Jersey Tea had been (which never came up in spring 2019). The Aronia was a better choice. It can take some flooding -- it's under the canale and Big Red the Rainbarrel sometimes overflows.
It did not thrive, staying tiny and spindly, and then in fall 2020 it was sheared by a rabbit. It came back, smaller, in spring 2021with glossy green leaves but still very spindly.
It developed chlorosis in June of 2021. I added iron and it improved but did not grow.
I took it out in fall 2021 and put it at the back of the potting bench curve. It survives.
The newest, Ground Hug, is planted under the Rose of Sharon in the birdbath garden.