Seven-Son Flower
Heptacodium miconioides
Late summer is its moment, when little else among the shrubs is in flower, and it asks for very little the rest of the year.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- White
- Sunlight
- Full sun to partial shade.
- Watering
- Regular water until established, then drought-tolerant.
- Feeding
- A light feed in spring.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- August
- Pruning
- Shape it in late winter; it needs little.
- Apr–Aug Bud Break
- Aug–Oct Flowering
- Oct–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Apr Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 9 ft 10 in
- In-row spacing
- 9 ft 10 in
- Between rows
- 12 ft 4 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
- 15–20 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 Seven-Son Flower’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.
- Generally trouble-free No notable pest or disease problems when grown in the right conditions — one of the easy ones.
Hydrangea, Japanese Anemone, Aster, Ornamental Grasses
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com