This unusual shrub delivers interesting flowers in a rare colour, beautiful foliage and intriguing, bladder-like seedpods. Colutea media ‘Copper Beauty’ is a vigorous, bushy shrub with blue-green ladder-like leaves composed of 5 or 6 leaflets. In June and July, it is covered in racemes of 3 to 8 pea-like flowers in a lovely bronze-orange spotted with yellow markings. The flowers are followed by striking, red-tinged, bladder-like seed pods about 8cm long. The pods inflate as the seeds ripen and pop loudly when squeezed making them irresistible to curious children! Colutea media ‘Copper Beauty’ is easy to grow in a hot, sunny border with freely draining soil. Resistant to pollution it suits urban gardens and grows well in coastal locations and on dry banks. Its size can easily be restricted by pruning after flowering. Height and spread: 3m (10ft).