Little Henry Virginia Sweetspire (Itea) – 3 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; Brilliant Red and Orange shades in fall

Fragrant Foliage:  No 

Berries:  –

Berry Color:  –

Attracts:  Butterflies, beneficial Pollinators, Visual Attention, Birds

Resistances / Tolerances:  Deer, Insect, Disease, Heat, Mildew, Wet Soil, Full Sun or Shade

One of the prettiest flowering shrubs you’ll ever grow, Little Henry Sweetspire is an adaptable and easy to grow North American native plant that rivals the burning bush for fall color, and it blooms. In early summer the plant displays elongated, scented, pure-white flowers in bottlebrush-like spikes that shoot out from the shrub like fireworks, and that the butterflies and beneficial pollinators will thank you for. Forming a rounded mound to only 3 feet tall, the oval, bright to medium green leaves turn brilliant shades of reds and oranges 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. Exceptionally adaptable, Little Henry can be grown in full sun or full shade and moist to even boggy, wet soils. A fantastic native shrub that anyone can grow and deserves a spot in any garden in USDA Zones 5a-9b.

Growing 3 to 3.5 feet tall and 2.5 to 3 feet wide, Little henry 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 in heavy shade. A fine addition to butterfly and hummingbird gardens, beneficial pollinator gardens, bog gardens, cut flower gardens, white theme gardens, or sunny or shady woodland borders and gardens.

Suggested Spacing:  2.5 to 3 feet apart for solid hedges;  6 feet or more apart for space between plants

Little Henry Sweetspire is very easy to grow in most any moist to wet but well-drained soil in sun or shade. Moderate 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.

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