The Agaritas (Mahonia trifoliolata) have been blooming for the last couple of weeks, in another sign of an early spring. I took these photos of one shrub near our house last weekend.

We have them all over our property. They are native, drought-tolerant, and very low-maintenance. Ok, make that zero-maintenance. Wouldn’t one look great in your landscape?

They provide a beautiful backdrop year-round, but in the spring, they burst with pretty, small yellow flowers.

In a few weeks, they’ll be covered with small red berries, also quite beautiful. The berries are edible and can be made into fruit juice, wine, or jelly.

Here’s a shot of the entire shrub. This one grows in partial shade and that makes it have a spindly shape, not full, as the branches reach light.

Agarita Shrub

This view is a bit closer, so you can see the individual branches. Each branch is covered with the small flowers. They’re quite stunning. Keep in mind that this is a wild plant. It gets absolutely no care from us.

Agarita Branches

Finally, here’s a view of the flowers. The ones at the tip are open and some further down are not yet open. You can also see where the “trifoliolata” in the species names comes from. The leaflets occur in threes.

Agarita Flowers

Please follow this link to read other posts about agaritas.