And like the LBD, spirea adapts beautifully to every occasion–formal or casual, on its own or accessorized. You’ll love how this multi-purpose plant makes garden design a breeze. Plus, with nearly 100 unique spirea species, you’ll find a gorgeous selection to make your garden glow.
While there are loads of spirea options available, the main species you’ll most commonly find for sale include:
- Japanese spirea (Spiraea japonica): low-growing, mounding form that’s known for wide flowers and a vast range of foliage colors.
- Bumalda spirea (Spiraea x bumalda): similar to Japanese spirea, it’s a cross between Spiraea albiflora and Spiraea japonica, with flower colors ranging from white to deep pink.
- Birchleaf spirea (Spiraea betulifolia): larger, blue-green, birch-like leaves turn stunning colors in the fall garden.
- Korean spirea (Spiraea fritschinana): grows beautifully in forests, slopes, and rocky areas.
- Nippon spirea (Spiraea nipponica): commonly known as snowmound spirea, this relatively smaller, upright, mounded shrub blooms in late spring with a show of clustered, small, white flowers, followed by deep blue-green leaves.
- Vanhoutte, commonly known as bridal wreath spirea (Spiraea x vanhouttai): known for flowing, arching branches filled with cascading, showy spring blooms and a vase-shaped habit.
If you haven’t grown spirea, here are the top 11 reasons why you need it in your garden.
1. Create Three Seasons of Garden Interest with Spireas
Spirea is a showoff—in the best possible sense. Depending on the variety you select, blooms begin in the spring or late summer—and keep going with deadheading. This is not a one-and-done flowering shrub. Instead, you’ll enjoy beautiful flowers throughout the growing season. And once they’re finished flowering, the fabulous foliage adds color and interest to the garden. Some newer cultivars, like Double Play® Doozie®, don’t set seed, which means no deadheading is needed for ongoing blooms. Instead, just plant it and enjoy a long show in the garden.
But spirea makes your garden look lovely even before and after flowering. Many varieties sport extremely attractive foliage, with colors changing from spring to summer to fall. Birchleaf spirea Glow Girl®, for instance, produces bright, chartreuse foliage in spring, which turns a bit darker in the summer, but then wows the garden with yellows, oranges, and reds in the fall. With a combination of beautiful blooms and fabulous foliage, spirea makes your garden look gorgeous throughout the growing season.
2. Relish a Low-Maintenance but High-Impact Garden Addition
Spirea is like your favorite dinner guest: easy, relaxed, and entertaining. There’s no high-maintenance, special diet involved, it plays nicely with other plants, and as long as it gets some sun, it will delight you all season long.
A sunny space produces a great performance from spirea, but the shrub does tolerate part-shade, too—just expect fewer blooms. If you’re worried that your pH is off, the soil is poor, or your urban environment generates too much pollution for spirea to thrive, relax: this is one highly-adaptable shrub.
In fact, once you plant it, just keep it well-watered the first year, and that’s it: you’ll love this laid-back, easy-going garden guest.
3. Feed the Bees (and Butterflies, Hummingbirds, and Other Buzzy-Friends)
Not only does spirea create a gorgeous glow in the garden, its beautiful blooms provide a feast for pollinators—and a fantastic show for you. Hummingbirds, butterflies, honeybees, bumble bees, halictid bees, masked bees, andrenid bees, wasps, ants, syrphid flies, long-horned beetles, and ctenucha virginica moths all love the clusters of spirea blooms.
Plant spirea near a porch or patio to watch the pollinators play, or add a shrub near your vegetable garden to lure pollinators that help boost harvests. It adds a pretty pop of color near veggie beds, too.
4. Fill Garden Spaces Fast with Spireas
If you’re looking to create a lush, established garden quickly, spirea is the shrub for you. Whether you need a foundation planting, a privacy hedge, or a pretty border along a path, spirea grows fast, filling sunny garden spaces with beautiful blooms and fab foliage.
But keep in mind that spirea is a deciduous shrub—meaning that although you’ll enjoy three seasons of beauty, those pretty leaves will drop, leaving bare branches in the winter. You may want to create a foundation planting using a mix of spirea along with evergreen shrubs for a rich, layered look.
5. Focus on Spirea Foliage
Foliage color depends on the variety: some cultivars, like Double Play® Candy Corn®, unfurl bright red foliage in the spring, which morphs into yellow followed by orange leaves in the fall. Double Play® Blue Kazoo® starts out with blue foliage that turns red in fall. And Double Play® Dolly® begins with orange/red foliage that transitions to chartreuse yellow.
Birchleaf spirea is known for its bright chartreuse foliage that turns yellow, orange, and red, while Japanese spirea boasts the biggest range of both flower and foliage colors, depending on cultivars. Even without a single bloom, spirea makes an excellent statement in the garden.
6. Create Garden-to-Vase Bouquets with Spirea Blooms
Let’s face it: pretty foliage is great, but what gardener doesn’t love beautiful blooms? With the many different varieties of spirea, you can ensure your vases stay filled from spring until fall. Spirea blooms not only look great in the landscape, but they make excellent, long-lasting cut flowers.
Whether you’re using the arching branches of bridal wreath spirea to add height and interest to a bouquet or prefer the wide flowers of Japanese spirea to use as a frilly filler, the many spirea varieties allow your creativity to shine.
Along with the beautiful blooms, the colorful foliage creates interest in floral arrangements, too. Add several varieties of spirea to your landscape, and harvest ingredients for homegrown bouquets throughout the growing season.
7. Grow Where the Growing Is Tough
- Does your garden sport poor soil?
- Do you live in a hot, humid climate?
- Do you have steep slopes, creating areas where erosion is the predominant, unwanted focal point?
Spirea to the Rescue!
An easily adaptable shrub, spirea grows just about anywhere.
- Bad soil? No problem!
- Urban setting filled with pollution? That’s OK, too.
- Grow in your zone? Many cultivars survive in USDA zones ranging from 3 to 9—a big divergence in temperature.
- Part sun location? Spirea even will grow in part-sun, but for the best blooms, full sun is key.
There’s a reason spirea is favored by many landscapers: this highly versatile shrub looks great and grows well just about anywhere.
8. Select a Spirea for Any Space
While many gardeners think of the large, arching branches of bridal wreath spirea—which needs plenty of room to grow—there’s a spirea variety ideal for any space. Whether you garden in a large, multi-acre landscape or fill containers for a sunny balcony or patio garden, you’ll find a wide variety of spirea perfect for any size space.
If you’re looking for a big, statement-making shrub, bridal wreath reaches 7 to 10 feet tall, creating a dramatic focal point. With a similar arching habit, ‘Snowmound’ (S. nipponica) offers a slightly smaller shrub, reaching 4 to 7 feet tall.
For foundation plantings or shorter hedges, look for cultivars that grow about 3 to 4 feet tall, like Pink Sparkler™ Birchleaf, andGoldflame. For borders, mixed plantings, and containers, try compact varieties, such as Little Princess, which grows only 2 feet tall, or Little Spark®, which reaches only 18-24 inches tall.
With so many spirea varieties, you’ll find the perfect one to suit your space.
9. Survive Dry Summers with Drought-Tolerant Spirea
Let’s face it: watering in intense summer heat is no fun, but it’s usually necessary for a gorgeous garden, especially during times of drought. Fortunately, spirea exhibits good drought tolerance once established, meaning you’ll spend less time wrestling a hose in the garden and more time enjoying the pretty blooms and foliage.
Plant spirea near a patio to enjoy its dazzling show—while you relax on a lounge chair reading a book. Or add a spirea near an outdoor seating area and savor the view while you eat dinner al fresco. These low-maintenance beauties make your garden look great, even when the rain stays away.
While spirea is a drought-tolerant shrub, make sure to keep newly-planted spirea watered during the first year.
Even if a plant is known as drought-tolerant, all newly planted shrubs need supplemental water until their roots become well established.
10. Enjoy Disease-Resistant Spirea for an Easy, Pretty Garden
Rose foliage gets spotty, boxwoods suffer blight, and many of our favorite flowers sport a white coat of powdery mildew. It’s frustrating, battling to keep gardens looking great all summer long.
But then there’s spirea: beautiful, healthy, low-maintenance favorite flower-child of the garden.
Most spirea stays healthy throughout the season and avoids many of the diseases their rose cousins contract. And while they are easy keepers, it’s still good to provide plenty of air circulation around the shrubs, avoid overhead watering, and check periodically for aphids, which can spread disease.
But for the most part, spirea avoids major diseases and pests, giving you more time to enjoy your garden.
While spirea is a disease and pest resistant, it’s always important to follow good hygiene practices in the garden.
Use clean pruners, remove fallen foliage around the plant, space plants well when planting to provide good air circulation, and check often for signs of pests or diseases to address them early, in case there’s an issue.
11. Feed the Pollinators, Not the Deer
Both deer and rabbits tend to avoid nibbling on spirea, so if your garden backs up to a forested area, or if wildlife have found their way into your suburban or urban backyard, spirea makes a great addition to your landscape. But remember: if a deer is hungry enough, no plant stands a chance.
If deer consider your garden their personal buffet, it’s time to add spirea to the smorgasbord. For deer, spirea is like the limp bit of curly parsley on the all-you-can-eat buffet: you COULD eat it, but why would you, when there are so many tastier treats?
Are you ready to celebrate the Year of the Spirea in your garden? Take the plunge: pick your favorite varieties to create a gorgeous, three-season show in your garden.
Do you know that National Garden Bureau members include the most innovative breeders and distributors of spirea cultivars?
Whether you want a large focal point for the landscape, a beautiful shrub with three seasons of interest for a bed, a small, compact variety for a container or small space, or a beautiful, blooming hedge, you’ll find the latest, greatest spirea cultivars from National Garden Bureau members.
About National Garden Bureau
Founded more than 100 years ago, the National Garden Bureau educates, inspires, and motivates people to grow home gardens. National Garden Bureau members are horticultural experts, and the information shared with you comes directly from these experts to ensure your gardening success.
Each state in the U.S. has their own list of invasive species. Before trying a new plant in your garden, refer to the USDA’s National Invasive Species Information website or check with local agencies such as an Extension specialist.
“This post is provided as an educational/inspirational service of the National Garden Bureau and our members. Please credit and link to National Garden Bureau and author member when using all or parts of this article.”
3 comments. Leave new
I have abridsl spirea, love it! Should I fertilize it snd when.
To fertilze your spirea the best time is spring with a controlled-release fertilzer formulated for trees and shrubs according to instructions.
I enjoyed this article. As i read i could see the spirea in my little garden and plan to follow through with new plantings as soon as i find a good vendor close by. Thank you.