Their longevity in American gardens is a tribute to their beauty and tenacity. Abelia is part of my earliest memories. My late grandmother Addie Suggs began growing abelias in Burlington before I was born. While hollies and other shrubs have become more popular they don't have the grace of the abelia's arching stems, or the numerous white flowers in late summer when little else blooms, or the light, sometimes insistent and sometimes undetectable fragrance of the small, bell-shaped, clustered flowers. I like the brownish or tan flower calyxes that hang on the abelia until autumn.
Few shrubs offer brown tones in the landscape.