Enchanted Forest® Gay Goblin™ Pieris

Wine-red new growth and cascading white bell flowers turn this evergreen Pieris into a year-round anchor for the shade-edge garden.

The Enchanted Forest® Gay Goblin™ Pieris (Pieris japonica 'Cabernet') is a broadleaf evergreen shrub prized for its season-long color story. In early spring, drooping chains of small, urn-shaped white flowers spill from the branch tips like strings of tiny lanterns. As the blooms fade, the real signature appears: glossy new foliage that emerges a deep cabernet-red before maturing to lustrous dark green, giving the plant fresh color flushes through the growing season. With an upright, slightly arching habit reaching 5 to 7 feet tall and 3 to 5 feet wide, it holds its leaves all winter, so the structure and shine never disappear.

Why growers choose the Gay Goblin™ Pieris

• Two seasons of color in one plant. Early-spring white bell flowers are followed by wine-red new growth that lights up the shrub again as the leaves push out.
• Evergreen all year. Glossy dark-green foliage stays on the plant through winter, providing structure and screening when deciduous neighbors are bare.
• Genuinely deer resistant. Pieris is among the most reliably deer-avoided evergreens, making it a dependable choice for browse-prone properties.
• Easy in part shade. It thrives at the woodland edge and in dappled light where many flowering shrubs struggle, hardy in USDA zones 6 to 8.
• Tidy, slow, predictable habit. A slow growth rate and naturally upright form mean it keeps its shape with very little pruning.

Use it as a glossy evergreen anchor in a foundation planting, layered into a shaded mixed border alongside azaleas, rhododendrons, and ferns, or grouped as an informal screen along a woodland edge. It pairs beautifully with other acid-loving companions and brings welcome winter presence to any part-shade corner.