{"id":256,"date":"2011-05-16T03:57:40","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T11:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=256"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:34","slug":"deutzia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/deutzia\/","title":{"rendered":"Deutzia"},"content":{"rendered":"

DEUTZIA
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>The long cool spring in my area has brought a floral feast to my garden. \u00a0The last of the daffodils are blooming alongside the tulips, ajuga, bluebells, columbines, cranesbills, forget-me-nots and lilies-of-the-valley.\u00a0 This kind of abundance is more characteristic of a flower show than a suburban garden.\u00a0 I would enjoy it all even more if only I didn’t have to mow the fast-growing grass every third day and attempt to wrestle the runaway privet into submission with my hedge trimmer.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the midst of the growth explosion, one shrub has quietly covered itself with dainty, pearl-like buds that are waiting for the right moment to pop open.\u00a0 The shrub is Deutzia gracilis and I am seeing it in a lot of yards and gardens.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You have probably seen deutzia, even if you don’t know its name.\u00a0 The shrubs are deciduous and stand between two and five feet tall, with slender branches.\u00a0 The relatively small, elongated leaves have a rough surface.\u00a0 Deutzia has one distinction and that is the flowers, which are white or pink and star-like with five petals apiece.\u00a0 Though the individual flowers are small, they are borne in spikes at the ends of the branches or in loose pyramidal clusters.\u00a0 A healthy deutzia will clothe itself with lightly fragrant blooms in mid-spring and return to relative anonymity thereafter.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Like many flowering shrubs, deutzia came from abroad, in this case the Far East.\u00a0 Deutzia gracilis is originally from Japan; other species in commerce come from China, Korea, Taiwan or the Philippines.\u00a0 Though they do not have the large flowerheads of hydrangeas or the heavily scented flowers of mock orange, they share Hydrangeaceae family membership with those species.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Deutzia was first described in 1781 by the great botanist Karl Pehr Thunberg and named after his Dutch patron, Johann van der Deutz.\u00a0 It came into its own in the nineteenth century, when Victor Lemoine, 1823-1911, a legendary French nurseryman and hybridizer, went to work cross-breeding various species and varieties.\u00a0 The work was continued by his son until the mid 1920’s.\u00a0 Some Lemoine hybrids are still in commerce, like the luxurious Deutzia x kalmiiflora.\u00a0 Each blossom is white with a deep pink stripe on every petal, making the flowers appear pink from even a short distance away.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lemoine, who also loved and worked with other shrubs like lilacs, hydrangeas and weigelas, would probably be amused to see that flowering shrubs are once again the superstars of the horticultural world.\u00a0 Not content to leave superstars alone, modern plant breeders and marketers have taken deutzia to their hearts.\u00a0 Monrovia, the enormous plant growing and merchandising concern, lists four different deutzia varieties among its current offerings.\u00a0 Right now, the best known is probably ‘Chardonnay Pearls,’ which has golden-green leaves and white flowers.\u00a0 For those with smaller gardens, Deutzia gracilis ‘Nikko’ offers the same white flowers on a plant that only grows two feet tall with an impressive five foot spread.\u00a0 ‘Nikko’ would work equally well in a large container or a small garden.\u00a0 The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society was so impressed with ‘Nikko’ that they gave the plant their Gold Medal Award in 1989.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Neo-Victorianists and other connoisseurs of double-flowered species will probably love a slightly larger shrub, Deutzia scabra ‘Codsall Pink’ for its double pink and white flowers.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My garden is home to a pink-flowered species that offers the same pearl-shaped buds as other gracilis varieties.\u00a0 I never recorded its name, but it was sold right alongside ‘Chardonnay Pearls.”\u009d \u00a0The three-year old shrub is now about three feet tall and wide, and bears abundant blooms.\u00a0 It tends to sprawl and get a bit leggy, so I trim it back lightly right after it flowers.\u00a0 Pruning anything but dead branches from deutzia at other times of the year will cost you blooms, as the shrub flowers on “old”\u009d wood from the previous growing season.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Deutzia gracilis and other commercially available deutzia species and hybrids can be used as specimen plants, as part of mixed borders or even massed as hedges.\u00a0 I think it works best as part of a border, because the plants are rather nondescript when they are out of bloom.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No matter where you put your deutzia, make sure that it gets enough sun.\u00a0 It can survive in very light shade, but is much happier and more floriferous if it is provided with full sun.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Because of the predominance of Monrovia in garden centers nationwide, one or more deutzia varieties may be on sale at your nearest plant merchandiser.\u00a0 Find a larger selection at Forestfarm, 990 Tetherow Road, Williams, OR 97544; (541)846-7269; <\/font><\/font>www.forestfarm.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Catalog $5.00.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DEUTZIA \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The long cool spring in my area has brought a floral feast to my garden. \u00a0The last of the daffodils are blooming alongside the tulips, ajuga, bluebells, columbines, cranesbills, forget-me-nots and lilies-of-the-valley.\u00a0 This kind of abundance is more characteristic of a flower show than a suburban garden.\u00a0 I would enjoy it all even … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1535,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions\/1535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}