Wine and Roses Weigela – An Easy, Gorgeous Shrub for New Gardeners.
When I first moved to my current home some ten years ago, I needed to do a total makeover of the shrub and flower beds in front of my house. The first shrub I planted was a Wine and Roses Weigela. It was one of the best gardening decisions this new gardener has made.
I planted the weigela next to the steps leading up to my front door. From the second season until the most recent one, I have been treated to abundant, gorgeous pink trumpet-shaped blossoms. The photo here shows my weigela in its fourth year of blooming. As you can see, it has stunningly beautiful!
Tim Lundie's Wine and Roses Weigela
Now, for new gardeners the really good news is that this shrub is a breeze to grow and care for, assuming you have a spot where it can get full sun for most of the day. Watering is also easy — it makes no heavy demands on you or your water supply. When there are weeks with little or no rain, I soak it for about 30 minutes along with the perennials in front.
With very little maintenance, you can plan on getting your first blooms in early summer and additional blooms (though not as copious) during one or two other periods during mid and late summer.
Like hummingbirds? Observing these incredible winged creatures is one of my favorite past-times. They love the wine and rose weigela. Summer evenings I can sit on my front porch with a view of the shrub and watch the hummingbirds fly from blossom to blossom like die-hard shoppers at a tag sale! It’s one of the best parts of my day.
When I bought my shrub, as a relatively new gardener I had no idea that people who consider themselves plant snobs even existed – but they do! In doing some research on the weigela, I came across a very informative article by Tim Wood called, “The Opinions of a Reformed Plant Snob.” I guess the weigela is not considered obscure enough by some plant snobs, but Tim (nice name!) had this to say:
“One of the best features of Weigela, is that it’s user friendly. Adaptable to many soil types, it’s hardy to USDA zone 4 and has no serious pest problems. It’s easy to propagate, easy to grow and presents itself well in a container. In a word, it’s reliable! The only requirement of this plant is that it requires full sun to produce copious flowers.”
I might add that in all these years I have never had a pest problem with this shrub — reliable is a good description of its basic personality.
So, if you have a sunny spot and don’t mind what the plant snobs say — but do love gorgeous pink blossoms — the Wine and Roses Weigela might be the perfect choice.
Good luck!
I love the Weigela ‘Wine & Roses’. In fact I love it so much, I planted six of them right in a row along the south foundation of my house. They get full sun all day and reflected heat from the house. I planted mine April 2012 as one gallon shrubs. However, they are getting sun scorched, or at least I think it is sun scorch. A couple are worse than the others and a couple have hardly any sun scorch at all. Is this normal for newly planted shrubs? Below are links to a few photos. The first two photos are the Weigela ‘Wine & Roses’ that have it the worst. The last two photos are the two that have it the least. The funny thing is that the two that have it the least are on opposite ends of the row. The last photo is a picture of the entire row.
We have been pruning our Weigela shrub in the late fall, but when it blooms, the sparse flowers are hidden in the middle of the shrub and not visible. So, all you see are the branches with green leaves.
Are we wrong in pruning this shrub?
It’s best to prune it, within a month of it blooming. If you prune in late fall, you are taking off next years blossoms. It blooms in spring or early summer depending on where you live.
please help me with my wilting and burnt leaves Weigela…I live in new jersey…after hurricane irene…i noticed a drastic change…..it is no longer its beautiful self…can you help
New Jersey has been harder hit by Irene than many other places in the northeast. The excessive wind and rain can be harmful to many kinds of shrubs, the weightily included. I’m most familiar with the wine and roses weigela and you do not say if that is the type you are concerned about. However, when you mentioned “burnt leaves,” it makes me think this is more about an infestation of some kind and not the work of a hurricane.
You should check for harmful pests that might be at work here — it could even be infecting the soil. Since this is close to the end of the season for weigela, you might consider cutting back your shrub now rather than waiting for next spring. It’s also important to determine if other plants in the same general area are showing similar symptoms.
Let us know how things work out!