Bluebeard
Caryopteris incana
Worth cutting almost to the ground every spring — it flowers on wood it has not grown yet.
Light Full sun.
Water Copes with dry ground.
Height 1 m
Spread 3 ft 3 in
Spacing 100 cm
Root depth 12–24 in
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Silver and gray
- Flower color
- Blue
- Sunlight
- Full sun.
- Watering
- Copes with dry ground.
- Feeding
- Very little needed.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- August
- Pruning
- Cut hard back to 15-30 cm every mid-April.
- Overwintering
- Holds up to around -15C.
- Apr–May Bud Break
- May–Aug Spring Growth
- Aug–Oct Flowering
- Oct–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Apr Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 3 ft 3 in
- In-row spacing
- 3 ft 3 in
- Between rows
- 4 ft 1 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody and fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 5–6.5 ft across, about 1.5–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A shallow woody framework with the fine feeding roots in the leaf litter above it. Those feeders are mostly under the outer half of the canopy rather than against the stem, which is where water and feed should go.
The habit is Bluebeard’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Capsid bug Capsid bugs, leaving the shoot tips twisted
- Root & crown rot Root rot where the ground stays waterlogged
- Dieback over winter where the soil runs cold and wet
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com