A LITTLE MORE LIFE
Virginia sweetspire
Itea virginica
Fragrant flowers feed local pollinators, and the seeds give songbirds another food source.

MAKE IT FEEL AT HOME
A spot to thrive.
Tolerates wet soil and spreads by suckers; check the mature size of dwarf cultivars.
- Sunlight
- Part sun & shade
- Soil moisture
- Moist to wet / Average moisture
- Mature size
- 4–8 ft tall · 3–6 ft wide
- Season of interest
- Late spring–summer
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 5–9
- Garden role
- A flowering shrub
ONE GOOD SWAP
Instead of japanese spirea.
Spiraea japonica
Try virginia sweetspire for a flowering shrub.
Compare plantsNATIVE TO YOUR PLACE
Find it in your state guide.
Reviewed native coverage. Choose your state to see more alternatives.
Dig a little deeper.
Photo credits & licenses
Virginia sweetspire: Cathy DeWitt · CC BY 4.0
Japanese spirea: Milada · CC-BY-SA 2.0
Resized, converted to WebP, and cropped in the layout. Each photo retains its listed license. All photo credits
