How and When to Prune Spirea Shrubs

Beautiful flowering shrubs, spirea are enthusiastic growers with woody or cane-like stems that benefit from an annual pruning.

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Pruning removes old and dead wood and produces new shoots for vibrant, youthful plants with full foliage, abundant clouds of flowers, and a manageable size.

It thins the plant’s mass and reduces the existing canopy, which improves air circulation and allows sunlight to reach the understory, resulting in dense mounds of growth.

And many of the popular cultivars in the Spiraea genus also benefit from a second trim after flowering to encourage a light rebloom and pretty new foliage, and to check rambunctious growth.

The common garden types vary in size and shape, some with a mounded or rounded form, others with graceful, arching branches. But they all feature masses of delightful, tiny flowers grouped in clusters, flat-topped corymbs, or panicles.

The foliage is delicate and often lacy, giving at least two, and often three seasons of colorful interest.

Many of the newer cultivars have luminous, color-changing leaves that emerge in shades of chartreuse, copper, gold, orange, and scarlet then morph into various hues of green.

And most put on a pretty autumn show as well when leaves turn deep shades of burgundy, copper, orange, scarlet, and purple.

The pretty flowers are attractive to vital pollinators like bees and butterflies, but deer tend to leave them alone.

Unique shrubs, these cold-hardy plants put on an outstanding multiseason display but need you and your garden snips to look their best!

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