Nandina is an elegant shrub with dark green pointy leaves. It offers fantastic autumn and winter interest adding a splash of colour to the garden.
As a plant, Nandina offers you a varied display in the second half of the year. First there are white panicles of flowers. Then comes a fabulous autumnal crimson colour change, complete with bright red berries. And as the icing on the cake, this beauty retains a full crimson appearance through the winter, partly thanks to the elliptical leaves which are usually in pairs along the stems. Nandina is also known as heavenly bamboo. This is slightly misleading, since Nandina is not related to bamboo, although the plant is certainly heavenly. In China Nandina was often planted beside temples, a fact which was reflected in the name when the plant made its way to Europe.
Give Nandina space
To display Nandina's spectacle at its best, you should ideally let the plant shine on its own, e.g. in a position in a flower bed where it has room or in a beautiful pot without any direct competition. Thanks to its loose shape, Nandina works very well in a garden where nature is left to do it’s own thing. It is very versatile and can even be used in informal hedges.