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Spirea is a sheetadnye ornamental shrubs, in the form of crops and wild growing in almost all regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Thanks to the efforts of breeders, a number of natural species has been significantly expanded, and today gardeners can choose from almost a hundred amazingly beautiful and not similar species.
You can find a shrub to your liking by studying photos and descriptions of popular spirea varieties that include plants:
- with different color of inflorescences and leaves;
- of sufficiently large and dwarf crown sizes;
- spring and summer flowering periods.
With all the diversity of the world of spirey, all types of shrubs are unpretentious, and already in the third year they are ready to please gardeners with their first inflorescences.
Spiraea golden Princess( Spiraea japonica Golden Princess)
Golden Princess - a spirea with a wide rounded crown with a height of only 0.6 meters and twice the diameter. A characteristic feature of this, blooming from mid-summer until the autumn of the bush, is the decorative foliage, which, depending on the season, changes color from yellow-green to rich yellow and even orange.
The oblong leaves densely covering erect shoots do not exceed 7 cm in length and are notched at the edges. On such a bright background, look magnificent corymbose pink or reddish inflorescences of Spirea Golden Princess about 5 cm in diameter. The shrub tolerates the middle zone winter well, does not need painstaking care and special soil mixtures, but shows the best flowering in good light.
Spiraea Gold Flame( Spiraea japonica Goldflame)
The spleena Gold Flame, abundantly blooming in summer, is not so surprised by rich pink paniculate or thyroid inflorescences, like an unusually bright jagged foliage, which, when it appears, has a purple tinge, like an unusually bright jagged foliage, which turns a purple tinge into inflorescences like an unusually bright jagged foliage, which turns a purple tinge into inflorescences.a real orange-yellow flame with carmine flashes. Thanks to this feature, the variety got its name.
A shrub with a height of about 0.6–0.8 meters in the middle lane blooms in the second decade of June, and the last flowers wither only by mid-August. Culture grows rather slowly, giving only 10 cm of growth per year. In garden plantings, Spiraea Gold Flame can be used to decorate a flower bed and as a base for a low hedge. The shrub does not cause trouble if it is planted in loose soil, receives regular watering and has enough sunlight, without which the yellow foliage dims or turns green.
Spiraeus Macrofilla( Spiraea japonica Macrophylla)
Belonging to the group of summer spiraea shrubs, Macrophile is valuable not with pink inflorescences, but with motley foliage, which becomes more saturated on the tops of shoots and creates a basic decorative effect. The wrinkled, excised along the edge of the leaves of this species unusual for the size of the spirea is unusual to reach 20 cm in length and 10 cm in width. In spring, they have a purple or purple-red color, in which by the height of summer green tones already dominate, and by autumn the foliage turns golden yellow.
Due to the high growth rate inherent in Macrophil spirea , and the May pruning of a plant to a height of 10–30 cm from the ground level, gardeners achieve constantly bright, as in the photo of a spirea, the top leaves color on the newly emerging shoots. The plant endures moderate frost losslessly and does not require additional shelter for the winter. When decorating a garden spirea, this species is indispensable on flower beds made up of perennial flowering plants, as a frame for garden paths and decoration of the sunny side of buildings.
Spiraeus Jenpay / Shiroban( Spiraea japonica Genpei / Shirobana)
The uniqueness of the Spirea Shiroban or, as this spectacular variety Jenpei is also called, in the simultaneous presence of flowers of various colors on the corymboid inflorescence. With a mass flowering shrub covered with thousands of small flowers of all shades, from snow-white to bright pink, as in the photo spirea of this variety. The shrub itself has a short, almost spherical crown, and does not exceed 0.8 meters in height. To maintain the shape of the crown, in spring the shrub is pruned to a level of 10–15 cm from the ground.
Shoots, like many representatives of the Japanese spirea species, are erect or slightly inclined, covered with red-brown thin bark. The leaves of Spirea of Shiroban, densely covered with branches, are dark green, narrow-lanceolate, and inflorescences decorating the shrub up to 7 cm in diameter appear in early July, and flowering stops only in August. With a high degree of decorativeness, it easily tolerates cultivation in difficult urban conditions, but it feels better in areas with loose, light soil and plenty of sunlight.
Spiraeus Crispa( Spiraea japonica Crispa)
Graceful Spiraea Crisp is a shrub with a spherical crown formed from upright or slightly drooping shoots. The height of an unpretentious, suitable for use in borders or growing in containers of the plant is about 0.6 meters. Numerous shoots cover oblong, strongly excised leaves along the edge, which appear reddish in appearance, become predominantly green in summer, and turn orange, bronze or purple in October.
The flowers of this variety, as in the photo of spirea, are simple, pink or purple and collected in small inflorescences up to 6 cm in diameter. The soil for Crisp's spiraea will suit any, as long as it is well aerated and not saturated with moisture. If in particularly frosty winters part of the shoots suffers. After pruning the shrub is easily restored, but it is important to take into account that the rate of growth in this variety is small.
Spiraea japonica Goldmound
Shrub with Pyreus Goldmouth up to half a meter wide and about 60 cm wide in shape resembles a slightly compressed top ball. A distinctive feature of the variety is yellow summer foliage, which has a reddish hue in spring.
The dense spiraea Goldmound crown with an abundance of medium-sized leaves from June to August is decorated with delicate pink flowers combined into sparse thyroid or umbrella inflorescences. Like other related species, this spirea needs pruning of old and dry shoots every few years. The rest of the shrub unpretentious and rather quickly growing.
Spiraea dwarf( Spiraea x pumilionum Zabel)
Hybrid spirea dwarf, barely 30 cm tall, was obtained by crossing the spirea splaying and Hacket. This groundcover, creeping plant with an elliptical, pointed foliage, 1 to 3 cm long. In comparison with other related species and varieties, dwarf spiraea culture is quite rare, although the plant is unpretentious and very attractive.
White flowers, peppered with shrubs from June to September, are collected in 5-centimeter squamous inflorescences. In winter, part of the shoots may freeze, but they are replaced by new branches and are already covered with flowers this year.
Spiraea white( Spiraea alba)
In the wild, spiraea is white, shown in the photo at the beginning of flowering, and is common on the North American continent and in a number of European and Siberian regions of Russia. As a cultivated plant, the shrub that grows up to 1.6 meters in height has been known since 1759.Unlike the varieties of spirea, whose photos and descriptions were given above, the crown of this plant is not round, but elongated, consisting of ribbed upright shoots, covered with red-brown pubescent bark.
Pointed, serrated leaves reach 7 cm in length, but do not exceed 2 cm in width. In a white spiraea, as in the photo, panicled or racemes are 6 to 15 cm long, combining many simple white flowers. It is possible to propagate this effective shrub with seeds, but grafting gives the best effect.
Spirea calinifolia( Physocarpus opulifolius)
Occurring in the middle lane not only in the European part of Russia, but also in North America, as well as in Siberia, the califberry is often known to gardeners as the spiraea calynifolia. Indeed, plants belong to the same family and are somewhat similar in appearance, but it is incorrect to call this plant spirea.
The spherical crown of a shrub up to 3 meters high is formed from drooping branches. The leaves are three-lobed, corrugated with strongly excised edges in shape very much resemble the leaves of viburnum, which gave the name to this species. The color of the foliage can be either dark green, or bronze or burgundy. From mid-June to the end of July, the crown of the bractorpond is covered with rounded corymbose inflorescences consisting of many small white or pinkish flowers.
Spirea ash-leaved( Sorbaria sorbifolia)
Another ornamental plant claiming to be called a spirea-ash-leaved is a mountain ash, an indigenous inhabitant of Siberia and the Far East, cultivated today from the northern border of the forest zone of Russia to the steppes. The confusion in the classification is caused by the external similarity of the mountain ash and some species of spirea, as well as their common affiliation to the family of Rosaceae. Nevertheless, the fieldfare belongs to another family than the spirea, but this does not make it less attractive and interesting plant, reaching a height of 3 meters in 4 years.
A large shrub that lives up to 20 years has erect branches with brownish-gray bark that form a dense spherical crown. The leaves are really similar to the foliage of mountain ash, but are more pointed. A young foliage, appearing one of the first in the garden, often has a purple color. In July, white fragrant flowers gathered in pyramidal paniculate inflorescences up to 20–25 cm long abundantly open.
