My favorite new plant this year is Abelia kaleidoscope. It is a wonderful compact, colorful, foliage plant that is part of the Sunset Western Garden collection. It is currently flowering, with small white fragrant flowers, in my test garden. The foliage provides a year-round color show. It is drought-tolerant once established, provides many complementary and dramatic companion plant options, versatile as a border, filler plant to provide a pop of color or in mass planting, containers, and easy to maintain due to its size.
