Weigela florida Vintage Love

Weigela Vintage Love is a recent beautiful creation that combines rare colours and abundant flowering. In late spring and early summer, this shrub with very dark green foliage is overwhelmed with softly tricoloured trumpet-shaped flowers, and again, but a bit more modestly, in autumn. From a distance, its flowers display a very beautiful salmon-pink tone. With a bushy growth habit, this shrub of modest stature will fit in everywhere, in a small garden and of course in a large pot on the terrace. Easy to grow, it thrives in ordinary soil in a sunny, countryside- or romantic-inspired flower bed.

Originating from northern China, Japan, and Korea, Weigela florida is a deciduous shrub belonging to the Caprifoliaceae family. Calcicolous, meaning it appreciates calcareous soils, it has a fibrous and spreading root system that supports transplantation perfectly. This species has given rise through hybridisation with other Weigela to numerous horticultural varieties, including the particularly charming 'Love' series of cultivars.

Weigela 'Vintage Love' features moderately fast growth and slightly spreading bushy vegetation. It forms a ramified bush that will not exceed 80 cm (32 in) in all directions at the age of 10. Its funnel-shaped flowers are pink on the outside, but cream-white mottled with pale yellow on the inside. They are open on clear stamens, in harmony with the corolla. The flowers are carried in corymbs at the end of the branches and bloom in two main waves, first in May-June and then again in September or October. This flowering is melliferous and nectariferous, but it does not produce fruits and does not exhaust the plant, which flowers abundantly. A particularly dark foliage is another asset of this variety. It starts off medium green, darkening more and more over the months, becoming very dark olive-green in summer and autumn. It consists of sessile leaves directly attached to the branches, pubescent on the underside, and ovate to elliptical. They are deciduous and fall in autumn.

Hardy down to -20 °C (-4 °F), Weigela 'Vintage Love' is one of those shrubs that easily succeed, except in the hottest and driest regions. It thrives in sunny or semi-shaded positions, in any fresh soil that is not too compact. This space-saving variety is suited to gardens of all sizes and container gardening. Its long and charming flowering period is far from sad: it will enchant any scenery and allow for the creation of superb flower beds or large borders along a path or a short grass meadow. In a flower bed, for example, give it companions such as purple Berberis, variegated dogwoods, deutzias, symphorines, or even a Buddleia alternifolia Unique with blue-mauve flowers. In the background, the very dark foliage of hollies or yews will form a dark setting that will provide scenery in winter.