Colutea media “Copper Beauty” seems to be a longer-blooming cultivar of Colutea arborescens, a native of Southern Europe from Spain to Roumania. In the wild it grows in well drained, chalky soil, mostly on dry slopes and rocky meadows, and likes full sun.
Colutea media blooms from May through September and its flowers turn into red papery pods. It is not evergreen and has no scent but very good drought tolerance once established. It will need copious but well spaced waterings for the first two summers after planting. After that it doesn’t need any additional water.
It is a very robust plant, hardy to -20°C, and has no known parasites or diseases.
According to some sources this shrub should not be trimmed although the extremities of the branches can be cut back a little after flowering to encourage branching and a more compact form. It grows very deep roots and will not take well to being replanted.
I planted ours in the fall of 2023. It flowered very nicely in 2024 from April all through August but all through the 2025 season it has been very straggly with few flowers. It was a bit crowded by poppies and such in the spring, maybe that’s the cause of it. I’ve finally trimmed all the extremities now to see if I can force some regrowth or if it will die – this way I can replant with something else or with one of the two seedlings that have popped up over the summer.
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