Tiny Wine Ninebark sat on my wish list for over two years until John happened to find one at a nursery on a trip out to the Olympic Peninsula. In fact, they had just one, and I said ‘grab it!’

Ninebark is a North American native shrub, with a few varieties native in the West, though this particular specimen is the cultivar of the eastern species ‘opulifolius’. Bred to stay small and bushy, Tiny Wine features deep maroon leaves and bursts of pink blooms along its arching stems in spring.

I’m always eyeing the many fabulous cultivars that arrive at nurseries in early summer, but they generally need a lot of sun and space, often growing 8 – 10 feet tall and wide. When I discovered Tiny Wine, which has the rich reddish-purple foliage I’m so addicted to but grows a mere 5 feet, I knew I’d found my ninebark.

I’ve situated this new addition to the garden along the lawn edge on the south easement, where we often sit on warm summer afternoons. It’ll have a good 5 years or so of sun before the Incense Cedar behind it grows tall enough to cast a shadow, at which point I’ll have to move it somewhere else. Which should be doable given its compact size!