Beauty Bush
Kolkwitzia amabilis
A big arching shrub that flowers generously in late spring, then asks almost nothing of the gardener for the rest of the year.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Pink
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Feeding
- Rose & flower
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- May
- Mar–May Bud Break
- May–Jul Flowering
- Jul–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Dec–Dec Winter Dormancy
- Jan–Mar Winter Dormancy
- Plant spacing
- 11 ft 6 in
- In-row spacing
- 11 ft 6 in
- Between rows
- 14 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
- 17–23 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 Beauty Bush’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.
Alliums, Geraniums, Nepeta, Roses
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com