A sweetgum leaf (Liquidamar styraciflua) on frosted Cotoneaster horizontalis...
Today has been the coldest day of the winter so far, with ice on the birdbath first thing. There was also a wonderful delicate frosting on the tiny evergreen leaves of the Cotoneaster horizontalis.
This is surely the best time of year for this very hardy shrub, which is often seen growing against walls.
Sugary frosting on the tiny leaves of Cotoneaster horizontalis
When I was a child we had a Cotoneaster growing against the cottage wall – like Viburnum, it seems very old-fashioned to me, a survival from Victorian gardens.
Frosted Cotoneaster horizontalis berries, December 10, 2011
I’m glad I didn’t know what Cotoneaster looked like written down when I was a child, as I would surely have called it “cotton-easter”. Lest you are in any doubt, it’s pronounced co-TONE-e-AST-er – or at least it is where I come from…
The name derives from cotonea, the Latin word for quince.
Cotoneaster is a huge genus and many species come from China, including this Cotoneaster horizontalis, which is also known as fishbone or herringbone Cotoneaster because of the neat arrangement of its branches.
It’s a funny thing, but I don’t usually notice the flowers, only the lovely red berries. I suppose in summer there is far too much else going on in the garden. Maybe next year I will look out for them. They are like tiny pink rosebuds and in fact Cotoneasters do belong to the rose family, Rosaceae.
The bee shows how small these Cotoneaster horizontalis flowers are - the picture is by Pere Igor on Wikimedia Commons...
Here are some more frosted leaves from this time last year…
The Squirrelbasket 
I’ve recently discovered that a plant I have in my garden is a cotoneaster. I hadn’t realised because I’d not known before that there are different versions. I’ve never liked it – neither the one in my garden nor ones elsewhere. The daft thing is – I’ve now bought another (one which looks different again). Can’t fathom it, even though it was me wot did it!
I’m not a great fan of Cotoneaster either – except when I get up close to the flowers and berries 🙂
I have allowed a bird-sown c. horizontalis to spread over the bottom of my small garden. The flowers open successively through May and attract large numbers of bees, hoverflies and other insects looking for early nectar; on a warm day 50-100 insects are feeding on them.
A couple of (rather poor mobile phone) pics of these: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_seligman_cardiff/3620854558/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_seligman_cardiff/3620035041/
I also have some photos of tree cotoneaster on ispot and flickr e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_seligman_cardiff/6320034554/
Any S Wales readers with Twitter accounts might like to follow @PaulSeligNature where I post occasional tweets which I hope wil be useful and/or interesting to local bird and nature lovers.
Thanks for sharing all that, Paul. That tree Cotoneaster is very different, apart from the berries, isn’t it? I guess it’s a Cotoneaster frigidus, then?
I must look out for the insects next year and take some pictures – that aspect of Cotoneaster had totally passed me by…
Best wishes till next time 🙂
Love this post. I once grew cotoneaster up and around my garage wall which looked lovely, because my living room window faced part of the garage which was concealed by the cotoneaster. Did not know there were other varieties though. Thanks for sharing.
And thank you for commenting 🙂
This is the first time I have ever seen or heard of this shrub…it is beautiful.
I found out these will grow in Florida and is drought tolerant..My wildflower garden thanks you as do the birds..great pics and I’ll bet they will make nice additions to my Holiday wreaths in a year or so…thanks for sharing..
I have read that it can become a bit invasive, especially when the birds eat the berries and spread the shrub.
As for the Holiday wreaths, I think Cotoneaster horizontalis needs a bit of taming to get it into the shape you want as it is very “herringbone” and stiff in its growing habit 🙂
Happy Holiday!
It looks like such a beautiful plant, gorgeous colours and the frosting almost looks good enough to eat! I’ve been putting together some ideas for plants in my teeny-tine front garden, so will be putting a Cotoneaster on the list 🙂
Good luck with that! Bear in mind it does spread a lot and I always find it’s not as lovely from a distance as it is close up 🙂
Best wishes – I love all your travel pictures on theunwittingtraveller.wordpress.com …