Escallonia Golden Carpet

The 'Golden Carpet' Escallonia hybrid naturally forms a spread-out and compact low dome, adorned with evergreen foliage that is golden, shiny, and bright throughout the year. It beautifully showcases the summer flowering in a deep red-pink shade. This somewhat scattered flowering continues throughout a long summer period, and even into autumn if the weather remains mild. Superb as a large ground cover, it also thrives in a small hedge or in a container on the terrace, in mild climates or by the seaside. If your climate allows it, plant Escallonia, these rewarding bushes grow fast, are floriferous, often fragrant, and truly undemanding!

Escallonias are excellent garden plants in mild climates, belonging to the Escalloniaceae family and are native to temperate areas of South America and Chile. In nature, these bushes grow among the scrub covering the slopes or on coasts exposed to sea spray.

The 'Golden Carpet' Escallonia is a recent horticultural hybrid, distinguished by its low and spread-out habit and particularly bright foliage. The bush forms a rounded dome, with a medium to slow growth rate, reaching a height of no more than 50 cm (19.7 in) at maturity, with a spread of about 1 m. Its persistent and shiny leaves are 2.5 cm (1 in) long, leathery, alternate, ovate, and dentate. They are golden in summer, turning rather chartreuse green in winter. The flowering occurs from June to August, for about two months, earlier or later depending on the climate, sometimes as early as May in hot climates. A second flush of flowers may occur in September-October. At the end of some branches, a short cluster of small, tubular, intense red-pink, bell-shaped flowers emerges, enclosed at the base in a purple calyx.

Escallonias are a great alternative to Weigela in mild climates, by the seaside as well as in dry gardens. 'Golden Carpet' forms a bright ground cover at the front of shrub beds. Its modest stature is well-suited for small gardens, as well as for container cultivation to adorn terraces and balconies. Well-known to gardeners in Brittany, Ireland, and England, Escallonia is also happy in Mediterranean climates, after careful planting and regular watering during the first two or three years. It tolerates heat, dry summers once established, and slightly chalky soils, and manages to flower even in scorching or shady situations. It is essential in coastal gardens: its flowering, just like that of Olearias, brightens the grey foliage of Atriplex, Bupleurum fruticosum, or Correa alba rosea for example. In a mixed bed, it can be paired with cistus, Polygala, Indigofera, Grevillea (in neutral to acidic soil), or with spring-flowering shrubs such as compact evergreen Ceanothus, brooms (Cytisus scoparius), or Loropetalum chinense.