Plant: Vanhoutte Spirea
Spirea · Spiraea x vanhouttei
Size: 3 gal
Light
Bloom
Mature size
More about this plant
Vanhoutte spirea is a fast growing deciduous shrub whose slender stems rise from the base and arch toward the ground, making a broad mounded vase 5 to 8 feet tall and 7 to 12 feet wide. In April and May the branches are covered in umbel clusters about 2 inches wide of tiny white flowers. The small dark blue green leaves are obovate with an irregularly toothed apex. It grows best and blooms most heavily in full sun, tolerates partial shade, accepts clay, loam and shallow rocky soils, and is deer resistant and drought tolerant once established. Prune after flowering.
- Full Sun
- Grows to 8 ft tall and 12 ft wide
- Blooms in spring
- Hardy in USDA zones 3-8
- Deciduous foliage
Plant description
Vanhoutte spirea is a fast growing deciduous shrub whose slender stems rise from the base and arch toward the ground, making a broad mounded vase 5 to 8 feet tall and 7 to 12 feet wide. In April and May the branches are covered in umbel clusters about 2 inches wide of tiny white flowers. The small dark blue green leaves are obovate with an irregularly toothed apex. It grows best and blooms most heavily in full sun, tolerates partial shade, accepts clay, loam and shallow rocky soils, and is deer resistant and drought tolerant once established. Prune after flowering.
- Flowers
- Tiny white flowers with four to five petals carried in umbel clusters about 2 inches wide that profusely cover the leafy branches in April and May.
- Foliage
- Small, simple, dark blue green leaves three quarters to one and three quarter inches long with an irregularly toothed or lobed apex.
- Bark & stems
- Slender glabrous stems form at the base and arch gracefully toward the ground.
- Pruning
- Spring bloomer; prune after flowering has finished.
- Native range
- Artificial hybrid of Spiraea trilobata and Spiraea cantoniensis
