Spiraea
Spiraea
Two shrubs under one name — the spring-flowering kinds pruned once they bloom, the summer kinds cut hard in March.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Pink
- Sunlight
- Full sun for the best flowering.
- Watering
- Water it in to establish, then it copes with dry spells.
- Feeding
- A compost mulch in spring, and rarely anything more.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- May
- Pruning
- Prune by type — after flowering, or hard in March.
- Mar–May Bud Break
- May–Aug Flowering
- Aug–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 4 ft 11 in
- In-row spacing
- 4 ft 11 in
- Between rows
- 6 ft 2 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
- 7.5–10 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.
It suckers gently at the base, which is how it is renewed: take a third of the oldest stems out at ground level each year.
The habit is Spiraea’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.
Geraniums, Lavender, Nepeta
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com