For those who like pushing the boundaries!

I recently came across this.....a hybrid between Eriobotrya and Rhaphiolepsis....called Eriobotrya 'Coppertone' or Rhaphiobotrya 'Coppertone' depending which nursery is selling it. It seems to have all of the desirable features of each parent and is supposedly hardy down to -8C/-10C. It even produces little loquats



ETA: Apologies if this is old news in UK!

 

If it flowers the same time and at the same height as loquat I don't think it would do very well here unless it gets some protection from buildings maybe or in a city.

 

Looking at the nursery description, it's spring-flowering like Rhaphiolepsis rather than autumn flowering like Eriobotrya, so would escape flower-and-fruit-killing frosts. Gets to about 2m. But that's here.....insofar as the info covers a pretty huge country

 

Just had a quick look and nursery says it's H4 - which says "hardy in average winter". Do we ever have average winter any more?

 

I grow Rhaphiolepis - aka Indian Hawthorn.
I've had a couple for more than 10 years and think they're lovely shrubs.
The young bronze velvety foliage is beautiful as are the the flowers.
It's lived through the 'beast from the east' years ago without any problems

 

Beautiful shrubs and I don't understand why they're not more widely available and grown.
Was the 'beast from the east' that foul winter of 2010/11? We had a week of -12C /-17C and half a metre of snow and it sailed through that too!

 

Agree the shrub does look very bonny but not a hope in snowballs of growing up here if it is borderline in most parts of the UK without a fair doze of shelter by the looks of things which I don’t have!
The Beast from the East was in March 2018 from memory. It is the only time in 24 years of living here that we really got snowed in ( snow above fence height on the road). Not because of a huge dump of snow but because the high winds drifted the snow. It was because of the Beast that I changed how I ran my charity plant sale. Previously I had supporters walking round the garden with me and I would dig out a clump of whatever they wanted. The huge herbaceous border where I was digging plants out of was, you guessed it, east facing with zero shelter so nearly died of hypothermia. After that experience not to be repeated, I then started potting plants up and kept them in my greenhouse…..much more civilised although a lot more work for me!

 

I just checked when I bought them and it was 2016.
So they've endured whatever the weather has thrown at them since then with no damage at all.

Next to it is a common Myrtle and that has suffered severe frost damage on several occasions over the same period.

 

The RHS gives Rhaphiobotrya "Coppertone" a hardiness rating of H3, down to minus 5C (same as a tree fern).

It grows well at Burncoose in the UK:

Eriobotrya Growing Guide - Burncoose Nurseries

 

I always did find the RHS erred on the side of caution and in some cases they're just plain wrong. If I'd followed their advice when making my gardens, life would have been extremely boring As @pete's always telling me, though, all the baking hot sun we get here in summer ripens the wood and toughens things up

 

It’s classified as H3 by Burncoose too, a well respected grower and seller. Probably best to err on the side of caution though if you’re a seller . Baking hot sun, that would be nice . How do your winter temperatures and climate compare with the UK @noisette47?

 

It varies enormously from year to year both in the temps and the amount of rainfall. Totally unpredictable! I think the closest comparison would be @NigelJ's neck of the woods in Devon.
Some years there are probably only a handful of frosts, some years relatively dry and the occasional year when it doesn't stop raining between October and June.
As mentioned elsewhere, the worst winter by far was 2010/11 when a wave of arctic weather swept down from Germany giving 8 days of -12C/-17C and deep snow.
Maybe the main difference was that even in winter, when the sun appears, there is a bit of strength to it, but I've noticed a far higher percentage of cloudy days in the last 7/8 years.
The other difference is a slightly longer growing season with spring starting in March as it should.
Then 3-4 months of drought in summer. You can imagine what the plants think of that!

 

I would imagine it wouldn't be keen on my garden as a lot of it gets dry in summer, but the main issue would be the cold winds from the east in spring. One good blow from the East in March/April can shrivel all the new growth for that year and I've lost a number of things over the years due to this wind.

 

It does sound quite variable then @noisette47. Burncoose Nurseries in the link above is in Redruth, Cornwall, which doesn’t get severe frosts. I think @pete’s point about hot summers where you are would account for improved hardiness, along with warmer winter sun. Good for human hardiness too .

 

It would be if it appeared just a tad more often