Is there anything else similar to a dwarf nandina?

[Indigo Blue]

In size, ease of care….?

This is for central NC, about two hours from southern VA border. 
 

Something that doesn’t get big? Like a dwarf nandina? 
 

I have no idea what else is out there to consider. We want to avoid huge, overgrown shrubs in years to come. 

[prairiewindmomma]

Nandina leaves and fruit are high in cyanide, and can harm birds. I am glad you are looking for alternatives. 
 

Dwarf spirea stays in that 2’-3’ size at maturity.

[marbel]

Check at a local native plant nursery; they'll be happy to guide you to something suitable. 

[TechWife]

There is a small variety of gardenia that I had a lot of success with in that climate. It needed an annual trim, but other than that I ignored it. I see them at Lowe’s pretty regularly during the summer.

I found this plant finder. You can customize the many filters to get a list of ideas. 

[BeachGal]

I agree with going in to a local nursery, maybe one that has a selection of locally grown natives. You’ll want to let them know how much sun the location gets, whether it’s morning or afternoon. Tell them you want nice looking and low to no maintenance and what you mean by low to no maintenance (low maintenance one person might be too much maintenance to another).

Here are some ideas to look through in the meantime. Some of these are more showy in winter, some are fragrant, etc. Think about what you would like and narrow it down from there. You can already exclude the larger bushes listed.

https://www.gardenia.net/guide/native-plant-alternatives-to-nandina-domestica

[alisoncooks]

Idk if you’re specifically looking for red foliage/flowers, but if white is okay, I second the gardenia rec. I have two varieties of dwarf gardenia (in the Raleigh area, purchased from Lowe’s). They’ve done really well in full morning sun even though I’m very hands off with my yard, lol. I’m amazed they’re still alive — I rarely water them. The one on our northern side has grown more slowly but bloomed this past year. They bloom like crazy!  (I don’t dead head them, I just hit them with blasts from my small/weak leaf blower, haha). I just put in two more last week. The deer don’t bother them. 

[KungFuPanda]

Native Alternatives to Overused Foundation Plants

 

I’ll bet something is in this article.  It’s a Virginia publication. 
 

 

Edited April 19 by KungFuPanda

[Indigo Blue]

11 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

Native Alternatives to Overused Foundation Plants

 

I’ll bet something is in this article.  It’s a Virginia publication. 
 

 

Thanks. I’ll take a look at that. 

[Indigo Blue]

Dwarf gardenias may be a good choice! Thanks!!!!

[alisoncooks]

9 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:

Dwarf gardenias may be a good choice! Thanks!!!!

Here’s one of mine a couple of years ago. If you zoom in, you can see all the flowers about to open. It’s over a decade old and I’ve lightly pruned it 2-3x (so still pretty small for the age).  

[Indigo Blue]

5 minutes ago, alisoncooks said:

Here’s one of mine a couple of years ago. If you zoom in, you can see all the flowers about to open. It’s over a decade old and I’ve lightly pruned it 2-3x (so still pretty small for the age).  

Thank you! I love that. That might just be the perfect size. 

[SanDiegoMom]

21 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Nandina leaves and fruit are high in cyanide, and can harm birds. I am glad you are looking for alternatives. 
 

Dwarf spirea stays in that 2’-3’ size at maturity.

I just had planted four nandinas, (eek) so I went to learn more about this. From what I have discovered, there is only one documented occurrence from one specific type of bird (cedar waxwing).  This blog style article quotes from another bird researcher: 

“Other birds don’t eat as much or as rapidly as cedar waxwings,” said Rhiannon Crain, project leader for the Habitat Network with The Nature Conservancy and Cornell Lab of Ornithology…Cedar waxwings completely stuff every possible part of their body with berries. They will fill their stomach and their crop with berries right up into their mouth until they can’t fit another berry inside of them.”

It isn’t just Nandina berries. Consider the following other incidents with cedar waxwings: South Dakota: killed by eating Cotoneaster flowers; in Nebraska, killed by eating crabapples and cotoneasters; in Indiana: ethanol poisoning from overwintered hawthorn fruit; Texas, killed by gorging on blueberries along a highway.

“They’re cedar waxwings,” said Capt. Garry Collins of Texas Parks & Wildlife, rather nonchalantly. “It’s a natural phenomenon. “It’s seasonal. Happens nearly every year.”

The Truth about Nandinas Killing Birds - GardenRant

 

"Ironically, until that fatal day in 2009, nandinas were widely touted as excellent bird food. Those poor cedar waxwings had nothing at all in their tummies but nandina berries, while millions of birds have enjoyed a mixed diet including some nandina berries over the past two centuries. Too much of a good thing can be fatal. While just swallowing a few whole won’t harm you, actually chewing and eating quantities of seeds or pits from apples, cherries, apricots, pears, peaches or plums can make you sick or even kill you. "

 

[Pam in CT]

One of my absolute favorite flowering shrubs is deutzia, which comes in regular mounding, upright and dwarf forms; most variants are white but I have a few (two upright, two dwarf) that are pale pink, very graceful sprays of blossoms. They are absolute workhorses -- can take pruning whenever you get around to it, do fine if you don't get around to it, deer resistant, can take anything from full sun to dappled shade, with fairly long bloom cycles.  Mine (I have a bunch of variants, so the lot of them) bloom from mid May through early July.  Here is a nice pink dwarf and there are plenty of white ones.

The also propagate very easily with my hack-"layering" system of pulling a low a branch down to ground level, making a few cuts with a knife, plonking a large rock on top of the branch, and waiting 6-24 months; the weighted branch pretty much invariably has rooted and I have a nice baby plant to put somewhere else.

[stephanier.1765]

On 4/19/2024 at 5:34 PM, Pam in CT said:

One of my absolute favorite flowering shrubs is deutzia, which comes in regular mounding, upright and dwarf forms; most variants are white but I have a few (two upright, two dwarf) that are pale pink, very graceful sprays of blossoms. They are absolute workhorses -- can take pruning whenever you get around to it, do fine if you don't get around to it, deer resistant, can take anything from full sun to dappled shade, with fairly long bloom cycles.  Mine (I have a bunch of variants, so the lot of them) bloom from mid May through early July.  Here is a nice pink dwarf and there are plenty of white ones.

The also propagate very easily with my hack-"layering" system of pulling a low a branch down to ground level, making a few cuts with a knife, plonking a large rock on top of the branch, and waiting 6-24 months; the weighted branch pretty much invariably has rooted and I have a nice baby plant to put somewhere else.

They are so pretty! How do they do in the heat? 

[Pam in CT]

re deutzias

On 4/20/2024 at 6:56 PM, stephanier.1765 said:

They are so pretty! How do they do in the heat? 

Once they're established they're pretty drought tolerant; I almost never water any of them. I'm in CT so we don't get sustained HEAT heat; they might droop at the high end of their ~3-8 range. They really are quite sturdy though.