Pacific Coprosmas are evergreen, densely foliage plants which will grow ultimately to a metre.  They grow well in full sun through to part shade; they cope very well when water is scarce; coastal spray does not bother them; you can clip them, or not; and if you remember to throw them a handful of slow release fertilizer in Spring, fantastic but not essential.  In other words they are as low maintenance as you can probably get.

Housekeeping aside, if you take a look at these plants you start to see, not only how lovely they are, but how useful they could be in anyone’s garden.  They rock it in pots clipped into classic topiary shapes.  Likewise they eclipse a classic buxus clipped hedge.  In fact Coprosmas make great hedges whether they are clipped low to run along a path or left to reach their full metre in height in a series of natural soft mounds.  Fans of massed planting will instantly spot the possibility of planting chunky wedges of foliage colours ,or if you have a garden bed fill with strappy foliage, imagine a few randomly placed clipped Pacific Coprosma orbs set amongst it all.  You get the idea – these are very useful plants.  

There are two Pacific Coprosmas to check out – Pacific Sunrise with its chocolate brown foliage tipped with hop pink highlights; and Pacific Sunset where the left centre is vivid red and the edges are rimmed in chocolate.  Seems like the only negative here is that you have to make a choice – or do you?