Spiraea nipponica Wedding Cake®

Spiraea nipponica Wedding Cake® is a variety of Japanese spiraea notable for its compact growth and abundant white flowering in late spring. It is a small, deciduous bush with a naturally rounded habit and blue-green foliage, which flowers in May-June. More compact than older Japanese spiraea varieties, it is suitable for small gardens and container cultivation.

Belonging to the Rosaceae family, Spiraea nipponica ‘SMNSNFD’, marketed under the brand name Wedding Cake® (Proven Winners ColorChoice®), is a horticultural selection developed by Timothy D. Wood at Spring Meadow Nursery (Grand Haven, Michigan). This cultivar differs from the older Snowmound variety in its more compact and uniformly rounded habit and its more abundant flowering.
The bush ultimately reaches 0.90 m to 1.20 m in all directions (rather 60 to 80 cm in a container); it tends to become denser with age. The shoots are slender, smooth, light brown with reddish highlights on young shoots; the leaves, deciduous, elliptical to obovate, 2 to 4 cm long, are blue-green on top and more glaucous underneath. They turn yellow in autumn before falling.
From late May to June, the bush is covered in dense, 4 cm corymb inflorescences, composed of very small white flowers with 5 petals, which are nectariferous. Very hardy (-30 °C), the plant tolerates dry conditions quite well once established.

The Wedding Cake spiraea is placed at the front of a large shrub border, in a low hedge or in a container near an entrance. Provide it with 4 to 5 hours of sun per day and ordinary, well-drained soil. Pair it with bushes of similar size but interesting at other times of the year: the small Weigela Minor Black with dark foliage and pink flowers, a dwarf conifer Picea pungens Glauca Globosa, a Nandina Fire Power and a Forsythia Mikador for example.

The word Spiraea means "winding" or "garland" in Greek; a legend says that meadowsweet was used to make garlands. It was in the 16th century that the botanist Charles de l'Ecluse attributed the name Spiraea to the entire genus. The species nipponica is native to Japan and was introduced recently. It was discovered by the German naturalist Siebold in 1885, but was only introduced to Europe in 1908. It has been used to create several cultivars.