PlantFiles: Glossy Abelia
Abelia x grandiflora 'Edward Goucher'

I have a huge love for natural butterfly gardens. I love the Edward Goucher! The leaves add a more formal texture to the garden but the branches pretty arches keep the shrub from looking stuffy. The flowers are quite pretty and go well with deep purple flowers. We are a zone 8 so this lovely shrub is very pretty and proud in the winter. If you have a corner bed that gets at least 5 or 6 hours of morning sun, give Ed here a chance to be the back drop of your brighter flowers. He will not disappoint.

I really love this, especially the smell (fragrant, but not overpowering). You have to keep it pruned to look nice, but it isn't difficult to keep it under control.

This is a great plant if left natural instead lollipoped. It can be pruned severely and will respond with beautiful arching shoots and pink flowers. Unpruned it has a native look and can be grown successfully with them. It is more water efficient than generally believed and is not fussy about soil. This plant has great potential if people would stop trying to make into a hedge.

I love this shrub, with its pleasing combination of flower and leaf colour.
As with all Abelias, it throws out long new growth and can look untidy. I have never tried the cutting to the ground technique described by mystic above, but find that the plant fills in the gaps the following year. It will certainly take hard pruning - as witnessed by the many neatly cropped hedges around here in SW France - but can be left to build into an expansive shrub if preferred.
The scent is lovely and the plant attracts many bees and other insects.

It can be used as a shrubby border or as a screen. The glossy 1/2 to 3/4 inch long leaves clothe arching branches, foliage is bronze tinged when young.

I planted this plant two years ago in my garden. The first year it was beautiful. Second, Very nice, But it had some really heavy big shoots that went straight up. The rest of the bush was arching and symetrical. I pruned those big shoots out. This year, most of the plant is dead. There is new growth down at the bottom, and some out on the ends of some of the branches. I saw on this site that it was at best a zone 7b. I am a zone 5. That is what it says on my information that came with the plant. Could my plant just be suffering from the winter? I love this little shrub, and would like to see it make it.

Blooms on new wood, so prune to the ground in late winter or early spring.This is a hybrid crossed between A. x grandiflora and A. shumannii introduced in 1911 by Edward Goucher of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Semi-evergreen foliage. Pale pink flowers continuously from summer to autumn. It does not like a harsh winter, so shelter it from cold winds, and remove any branches damaged by frost. Water abundantly in summer.