Virginia Sweetspire
Itea virginica
A native shrub with fragrant, drooping white flower spikes in late spring and red, orange and gold fall colour that lingers into early winter. It's versatile in sun or shade, thrives in wet soil, rain gardens and pond edges, and deer tend to avoid it. It suckers into colonies, great on a bank, less so in a tidy bed.
- Mature size
- 4 × 4 ft
- 1.2 × 1.2 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 5a–9b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium to moist
- Blooms
- Jun–Jul
- Fall color Oct–Nov
Virginia Sweetspire at its mature size
A mature Virginia Sweetspire grows 3 to 5 feet tall and just as wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: Missouri Botanical Garden.
Through the year
What Virginia Sweetspire looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Dormant · Dec–Mar
Bare arching reddish stems, dry seed spikes.
In leaf · Apr, Jul–Sep
Arching stems with dark green slender leaves, no flowers.
In flower · May–Jun
Drooping narrow spikes of white flowers along the arching stems.
Fall · Oct–Nov
Brilliant red to burgundy with orange, vivid and holding late.
Photos
Growing Virginia Sweetspire
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Southeast, and the Midwest.
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Good for
- Hedge, small space, foundation planting, rain garden, slopes, deer resistant, pollinators, fall color, and fragrant
- Leaves
- Drops its leaves in winter
- Native to
- Eastern North America
Spacing for a hedge
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Virginia Sweetspire, that’s about 4 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Virginia Sweetspire in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.