I’ve had Mahonia  ‘Charity’ in the garden for a lot of years now, but it has never really flowered properly here in Glenalmond – until this year – and it has fabulous clustered racemes of yellow perfumed blooms, which have been well worth the wait! The flowers should be followed by dark purple/black berries, but this will of course depend on how good or bad our winter is! Although it is a lovely sunny day today the north westerly wind is bitterly cold – time to get the ear-muffs out whilst walking the dogs!This shrub is extremely hardy and evergreen, with dark green leathery spine-toothed (or jaggy) leaves! Will grow to approx 4 metres high and by about the same spread if you let it – but it is easy to prune out protruding branches and cut back quite hard the spent flower heads in Spring! Grows in moist or well drained soil, exposed or sheltered site, sun to part shade! It’s a real toughy!

Mahonia x media ‘Charity’