A Tough, Bold Southern Lady(R) with a Delicate Side

Southern Lady® Pieris PPAF is an upright, evergreen shrub with spreading branches and dense rosette foliage. In winter pinkish-red flower buds adorn the shrub, giving it a festive holiday feel. By early spring the flower buds blossoms into delicate, slightly fragrant, white pendulous flowers.

Southern Lady® Pieris PPAF is an excellent choice for foundation plantings, shrub borders and shaded flower beds. Its deer resistance and early bloom time make it desirable for most any landscape.

This Pieris is named for its developer, Margie Jenkins, a true Southern lady who has been blazing the trail in the Louisiana nursery industry since 1962. Margie began her work with Pieris japonica in 2004 when she bought in a crop from New Zealand and began propagating them from seed. True to form, during a visit with several Greenleaf Nursery employees, Margie sent a few of these Pieris back to our El Campo, Texas, location with instructions to “See what these will do.”

As Greenleaf Nursery began to trial these varieties, they noticed a particular plant with better leaf spot resistance and heat tolerance than your typical Pieris. From there Southern Lady® Pieris PPAF became a part of the Garden Debut® family.

Southern Lady® Pieris PPAF is a slow grower, reaching a mature size of 6 to 8 feet tall and 4 to 6 feet wide. It will tolerate some sun, but thrives in partial shade. It performs best in moist, fertile, highly organic and well-drained soil that is slightly acidic. Native soils higher than pH 7.0 should be amended with organic matter.

For more information on Southern Lady® Pieris and other Great New Plants™ from Garden Debut®, visit www.gardendebut.com.