Spacing & sowing

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

Growing

Type

Shrub · Perennial

Botanical family

Mixed / other

Sunlight

Partial shade through to full sun — one of the better shrubs for a shady border.

Watering

Keep it moist while flowering, but never let it stand wet.

Feeding

A balanced feed in spring, then liquid feed every two weeks while it flowers.

Frost tolerant

Yes

Flowering

June

Pruning

Cut it to the ground in spring, once new shoots show at the base.

Through the year

• Apr–Apr Bud Break
• Apr–Jun Spring Growth
• Jun–Oct Flowering
• Oct–Nov Growing
• Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
• Jan–Apr Leaf Fall

Companions

Hostas, Heuchera, Ferns, Astilbe

Pests & problems

• Capsid bug A sap-sucker whose feeding leaves tattered pin-holes and distorted shoot tips and flower buds. Damage is mostly cosmetic; clear plant debris where the bugs overwinter.
• Vine weevil Adults notch leaf edges at night; their plump C-shaped grubs devour roots, especially in containers. Hand-pick adults after dark and water in biological nematodes in late summer.
• Gall mites Fuchsia gall mite
• Rust Orange-brown powdery pustules on leaf undersides, weakening the plant over the season. Remove affected leaves, avoid overhead watering, and clear all debris in autumn.

Garden allies

Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. ★ companion plant

• Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.
  Hunts Vine weevil

  Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.

• Frogs & toads Anura
  Hunts Vine weevil

  A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.

• Ground beetle Carabidae
  Hunts Vine weevil

  Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.

  Plant nearby LavenderMintThyme
• Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus
  Hunts Vine weevil

  A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.