Weigela Florida Picobella Rosa

The Weigela 'Picobella Rosa' is a new variety of dwarf weigelia with particularly long and abundant, bright, luminous pink flowering. This small bush with a rounded and compact habit is perfect for small spaces and pot cultivation. Its fine, glossy, medium-green foliage wonderfully highlights its pretty flowering in the form of small bells from May to October. Weigelas are easy to grow in ordinary, cool, well-drained soil. Compact varieties combine well with a wide range of small bushes and perennials in cottage or romantic flowerbeds, low flowering hedges, or large borders.

Derived among others from western Florida, the Weigela 'Picobella Rosa' is native to northeastern China, Korea and Japan. Weigela are Asian plants and belong to the honeysuckle family. This new cultivar was selected by the horticulturist Bert Verhouef in his nursery in Hazerswoude, Holland. The 'Picobella Rosa' has an exceptionally slow, naturally compact growth, forming a rounded and bushy dome. It reaches about 40 cm (15.7 in) in height with a 60 cm (23.6 in) span at maturity. This variety has a deciduous, medium-green foliage consisting of fine and lanceolate, slightly undulate, satin leaves which turn yellow-orange in autumn before falling. Its funnel-shaped, sustained, and bright pink flowers are abundant from May to October. They are carried in corymbs at the end of the branches from the previous year. This flowering is very melliferous and nectariferous.

Hardy to well below -20°C, the Weigelia 'Picobella Rosa' likes being in full sun or semi-shade, in cool but well-drained soil. Its cheerful prolonged flowering will brighten any setting and will, combined for example with purple Berberis, form a stunning border along a path or lawn. In a flowerbed, mix it for example with Galega, blood-red or variegated dogwood, ornamental brambles, a Physocarpus, snowberries or even a Buddleia alternifolia Unique, also a dwarf shrub with blue-mauve flowers. In the background, the very dark foliage of holly or yew will form a contrasting winter scene. This weigelia can also be pot-grown  on a terrace, or as a standalone to draw the eye in small gardens.