Loropetalum chinense ‘Zhuzhou Fuchsia’

Loropetalum chinense 'Zhuzhou Fuchsia' is Chinese fringe flower at full volume: deep, wine-purple evergreen foliage set alight in spring by tassels of vivid fuchsia-pink bloom. Each flower is a little spray of narrow, strap-shaped petals, fringe-like and slightly whimsical, clustered thickly along the branches so the whole shrub seems to smoulder pink against purple.

The species belongs to the witch hazel family, Hamamelidaceae, and shares that family's curious ribbon-petaled flowers; the genus name Loropetalum comes from the Greek for strap and petal, a plain description of the bloom. The plant is usually called Chinese fringe flower, and sometimes, loosely, Chinese fringetree, though that name belongs more properly to a different plant, Chionanthus retusus. The ordinary green-leaved, white-flowered form has long been grown for early spring fragrance, but it is the purple-leaved, pink-flowered selections like this one that have swept Southern gardens in recent decades.

'Zhuzhou Fuchsia' was introduced from China by the United States National Arboretum and remains one of the darkest-leaved and most richly colored of the group. The foliage holds deep burgundy to near-black purple through the year in warm climates, with new growth flushing a brighter red, and the fuchsia flowers repeat in flushes after the main spring show. Given room, the shrub grows fast and can become almost tree-like, an evergreen of real presence.

Use 'Zhuzhou Fuchsia' where the dark foliage can do structural work: as a specimen, a loose informal hedge, a screen, or a bold anchor in a mixed border, where the purple sets off silver, chartreuse, and gold neighbors and the pink flowers pick up rose and burgundy companions. Full sun deepens both the leaf color and the flowering, though the shrub tolerates part shade. Give moist, well-drained, acid to neutral soil, prune after the main bloom to shape, and the plant returns year-round color that few evergreens can match.