Pink Flowering Currant

Wed, 04/14/2010 - 9:35am — Kathy Ormiston

Photo Credit:

Kathy Ormiston, PADG

Botanical Name:

Ribes sanguineum

Pronunciation:

(RY-beez san-GWIN-ee-um)

Common Name:

Pink Flowering Currant

Plant Type:

Shrub

Mature Size:

5 ft. to 12 ft. tall and wide

Water Requirements:

Low: water every 3 weeks until the root ball is wet

Sun/Shade Requirements:

Half sun to shade

Flower Color :

Pink, red, yellow, white

Wildlife:

Attracts hummingbirds and other birds

Ribes sanguineum is a useful landscape plant because it is a rare shrub that shines in dry shade. Pink flowering currant is one of the first plants to awaken in the spring with a beautiful display of pendulous pink flowers and green maple-like lobed leaves. Ribes, a deciduous shrub, loses all its leaves in the late fall.

This large shrub can be used as a focal plant in the garden surrounded by smaller perennials or as an understory plant when combined with large, low-water using trees such as our California oaks.

There are many different cultivars of Ribes available with flowers ranging from red to pink to yellow to white. Some types of Ribes work well in full sun.

Pink flowering current can get by with very little water but looks fuller when a moderate amount of water is applied in the summer. When using a currant under a California oak avoid summer water.

Hummingbirds are attracted to the flowers, especially since they bloom when not much else is flowering. In the fall the shrub has blue-black berries that attract fruit-eating birds including mockingbirds and cedar waxwings. Ribes sanguineum is found along the Pacific coast from California to British Columbia, Canada.