4 Season Beauty

Winter has set in here,  23 degrees outside,  a few snow flurries and I'm thinking of my favorite 4 season bush growing in my garden and where I can plant another in the spring. The bush I am referring to is a Mahonia.  My first encounter with one was in my grandmother's yard and it was very beautiful.  Then several years later, while waiting on my son at school, I caught out of the corner of my eye, this same bush in a beautiful garden of a local church.  Ever since then, I have planted 4 more of them in my garden.  

These bushes are easy to care for, drought tolerant, sun or partial shade, and are fairly easy to prune.  They have beautiful yellow flowers in the fall through winter followed by gorgeous blue/green berries in the spring which the Cedar Waxwings love.  I believe this is one of my favorite birds as well, and they swarm our yard only one time a year in the spring and they cover our Mahonias.

The Mahonia also gets beautiful red leaves as well.  It does have very thorny leaves that will stick you  but if you have a place in your yard where you can have one, I highly recommend this bush.  It will never disappoint with something new to look out all year long.