Fothergilla
Fothergilla major
An acid-soil shrub that colors best in open sun, and travels outward on root suckers if nothing checks it.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- White
- Sunlight
- Full sun through to partial shade, though the color is best in full sun.
- Watering
- Moderate watering; keep the soil moist while it settles in.
- Feeding
- A light feed of ericaceous fertilizer in spring.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- Little needed — tidy it after flowering if it wants shaping.
- Mar–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–Sep Flowering
- Sep–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 5 ft 11 in
- In-row spacing
- 5 ft 11 in
- Between rows
- 7 ft 5 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- A fine surface mat, and nothing below it
- Working depth
- 4–12 in
- Can reach
- 18 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 6–9 ft across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 16 in of soil
Hair-fine roots in a shallow felt, with no deep anchor to fall back on. It cannot chase water, so it is the first casualty of a drought and the first thing killed by a hoe. Mulch it, never cultivate around it, and never let it go dry in its first two summers.
Shallow, acid-loving roots that sucker gently into a wider clump. Mulch it well and never hoe underneath it.
The habit is Fothergilla’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.
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com