Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Virginia Spiraea

Spiraea virginiana

Also called Virginia meadowsweet, Virginia spirea, West Virginia spiraea, Appalachian spirea.

A rare Appalachian streambank shrub with arching stems and flat clusters of tiny cream-white flowers in early summer, spreading into thickets.

RareShowy flowersTolerates wet soilErosion control

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 3–13 ft
USDA zones: 6–7
Growth rate: Fast
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Stream banks and rocky ground
Native range: 9 states, north and east to Pennsylvania, south to Georgia and west to Alabama
List all 9
Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia
Also recorded in 1 other state, outside its native range. See what is native in your state

Hardiness zones Find your zone by ZIP code

Virginia spiraea is a shrub of flood-scoured, rocky stream banks in the southern Appalachians, from Georgia and North Carolina north to West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. Floods break its stems, carry them downstream and bury them in gravel, where they take root, so most wild patches are single clones. Fewer than 30 different genotypes are thought to survive. It is listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia list it as endangered, and Georgia and North Carolina as threatened. Use it on a sunny stream bank or pond edge, where it can hold the soil and flower in early summer.

Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator treats it as a fast grower, like our ninebark, a streambank shrub of the same family, about two and three quarter feet a year. It is a clump-forming shrub of 3 to 13 feet with upright, arching or sprawling stems, and it spreads by underground stems into dense thickets.

Rounded or flat clusters of tiny cream-white flowers, 1 to 3 inches across and sometimes up to 8, open from late May into July. Small, shiny seed pods ripen in August and September. It sets plenty of seed, but few seeds mature, and seedlings are almost never found in the wild.

It grows on sunny, flood-scoured banks of rocky mountain streams, on gravel bars and ledges, often over sandstone. Scouring floods clear away competing shrubs, and beavers that cut its stems spur new growth from the roots. A record from Louisiana lies far outside its Appalachian range.

How to grow Virginia Spiraea

Virginia spiraea needs full sun or light shade and a moist, acid, sandy or rocky soil, best along a stream or pond. It takes floods and short dry spells. It spreads by underground stems into a thicket, so give it room. Set plants 6 feet apart, and keep each one 5 feet from a wall. It is small enough to grow within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Sow the dust-fine seed on bare, damp mineral soil in fall, leave it uncovered, and let winter chill it. Few seeds sprout, and seed from a single wild colony is seldom viable.

Water weekly through the first summer unless the soil stays wet. Deer browse it, so cage young plants for their first two years. Pull the Japanese spiraea, multiflora rose and privet that crowd it, and cut back trees that shade it.

Virginia spiraea largely rejects its own pollen, and a patch is usually one clone, so good seed needs plants from different sources growing near each other. Bees carry most of its pollen. It does not cross with the Japanese spiraea that grows along the same streams. Saplings are shipped only in state and otherwise pickup only.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

Sources (7)

Plan the planting