Spacing & sowing

Plant spacing

3 ft 11 in

In-row spacing

3 ft 11 in

Between rows

4 ft 11 in

Square-foot density

Not suited to SFG

Growing

Type

Shrub · Perennial

Botanical family

Mixed / other

Sunlight

Full sun to partial shade.

Watering

Water regularly for the first two years; drought-tolerant after that.

Feeding

An ericaceous or balanced fertilizer in spring.

Frost tolerant

Yes

Flowering

May

Pruning

Clip twice a year, in late spring and again in late summer.

Overwintering

Fully hardy — it comes through a normal winter without protection.

Through the year

• Mar–Apr Bud Break
• Apr–May Spring Growth
• May–Oct Flowering
• Oct–Dec Growing
• Jan–Mar Growing

Pests & problems

• Vine weevil Vine weevil larvae working at the roots
• Leaf spot Leaf spot through wet spells
• Iron chlorosis Chlorosis, showing as yellowing on alkaline soils

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.