Feller Landscape Group
Serving the Chicagoland counties of DuPage, Kane and Northern Cook. Over 25 years of experience!
...Where Imagination and Design Unite...
The Feller Landscape Group
Our choice for the plant of the month...
Itea virginica
Virginia Sweetspire
Beautiful gardens everywhere could be enhanced by planting at least one Itea (Virginia Sweetspire).
Forget that this shrub is highly adaptable and surprisingly drought tolerant for a native of moist soil. Sweetspire has the double benefit of fragrant, summer flowers and dazzling, autumn color.
Actually, it's not really fair to call it autumn color. Sweetspire's late-season red foliage can last through the winter in warmer areas like USDA Hardiness Zone 9. Even in cooler zones, red leaves persist often until December or as long as winter temperatures don't dip below 15F-20F. University of Georgia horticulturist Mike Dirr observed that I. virginica can retain some fall-color foliage until temperatures drop to minus 3F.
You'll see this beautiful late-season display on a shrub with a sometimes gangly form. Native to moist, understory areas near creeks, sweetspire naturally has a leggier, often uneven growth habit. The plant can produce denser and neater foliage and branches with a sunnier site, pruning and fertilization.
Though sweetspire is native to moist areas, it has been reported as significantly drought tolerant. It can establish in a landscape with only one year of supplemental watering.