Nerium oleander 'Double Pink'

Oleander, Nerium oleander, is a large, sun-loving evergreen shrub of the Mediterranean, grown since antiquity for a long, generous summer of bloom. Dark green, leathery, lance-shaped leaves ride in whorls of three along the long, sparingly branched stems, and from late spring well into fall the branch tips carry showy, lightly fragrant flower clusters. 'Double Pink' bears fully double, rose-like flowers in a soft, warm pink.

Few shrubs are so at home in heat and hardship. Oleander has graced Mediterranean gardens since Roman times, turns up in the wall paintings of Pompeii, and thrives on exactly the conditions that defeat softer plants: blazing sun, drought, lean soil, and salt spray off the sea. That toughness makes the shrub a mainstay of coastal and roadside plantings across the warm world, and in colder climates a fine tub plant to summer outdoors and shelter under glass for winter.

One caution belongs in every oleander listing: all parts of the plant are poisonous, holding cardiac glycosides that are dangerous if eaten. The practical garden risk is low, since the intense bitterness keeps animals and people off, and as the old Woodlanders catalog has always put it, oleander is poisonous but not likely to be ingested except by beach goers who choose oleander sticks to cook wieners. The moral is simple: never grill on an oleander stick, and site the shrub away from where small children or livestock might nibble.

Give 'Double Pink' full sun and well-drained soil and let the shrub do what oleander does best: a fast informal hedge, a screen, a sunny border anchor, or a large container on a hot terrace. The soft double pink flowers cool a bright summer scheme and read beautifully against the dark green foliage. Deer and rabbits leave the bitter leaves alone, drought and salt are shrugged off, and a hard late-winter prune keeps an old plant dense and full of bloom.