Henry’s Garnet Virginia Sweetspire (Itea) – 7 Gallon Pot

USDA Plant Hardiness Zones: 5a-9b Find Your Zone

Plant Type:  Deciduous Flowering Shrub 

Flower Color:  White

Flower Size:  6″ Long, 1″ Wide 

Flowering Period:  May, June

Flower Type:  Spire

Fragrant Flowers:  Yes

Foliage Color:  Green

Fragrant Foliage:  No 

Berries:  –

Berry Color:  –

Attracts:  Visual Attention, Birds

Resistances / Tolerances:  Drought, Insect, Disease, Mildew, Wet Soil, Heat

One of the easiest and prettiest flowering shrubs you’ll ever grow, Henry’s Garnet Sweetspire, Itea virginica, is a fast-growing North American native selection that features larger flowers and better red fall color than the species. Small, fragrant white flowers are densely packed in cylindrical, drooping racemes that cover the shrub with bloom in late spring to early summer. Oval, dark green leaves turn brilliant red over a long period during fall. Both the flowers and the fall foliage are a site to behold and one you’ll always look forward to seeing. 

An exceptionally versatile and easy-to-grow plant, Henry’s Garnet Sweetspire performs well in sun or shade and tolerates both dry and wet soils. Doesn’t get much easier than that. A flowering shrub that deserves a spot in every garden where it will grow. USDA Zones: 5a-9b Find Your Zone

Growing 3 to 5 feet tall and 4 to 6 feet wide, Henry’s Garnet Sweetspire is a perfect choice for adding elegance, fragrance, and color to just about any area of the landscape in garden beds or containers. It is ideal for use as an accent, in groupings, or as a natural hedge in sunny or shady landscape and flowering shrub borders or home foundation plantings and grows well even under large trees. A fine addition to butterfly and hummingbird gardens, cut flower gardens, white or red theme gardens, or sunny woodland borders or shady woodland gardens.

Suggested Spacing:  3 to 4 feet apart for solid hedges;  8 feet or more apart for space between plants

Henry’s Garnet Sweetspire is very easy to grow is most any wet to moist but well-drained soil in sun or shade. Good drought tolerance when established. Very little pruning is ever required, however, to reduce the size or shape of the plant prune just after the blooms have faded. Avoid removal of more than 30 percent of the plants foliage when pruning. On older plants some of the heaviest canes can be removed to increase vigor. 

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