The new forms have large, repeating flowers in a variety of wonderful colours, giving every reason to buy them, says Charles Quest-Ritson
WEIGELAS are easy-to-grow garden shrubs that we tend to take for granted. Hardy and dependable, vigorous and pestfree, their pendulous, bell-shaped f lowers are a leading feature of millions of gardens in early summer. Even in that season of floral luxuriance, weigelas stand out for their beauty and abundance. And bees love them.
The genus is named after a Pomeranian doctor, Christian von Weigel (1748–1831), who was personal physician to the King of Sweden. He was German, so the common English pronunciation (‘Why-jeal-ia’) is incorrect, as is our mangling of many German and French plant names, such as deutzia and choisya. Botanists cannot agree on how many weigela species there are—estimates range from 10–40, all from the Far East, but, to unbotanical eyes, most of them look rather similar. Gorgeous Weigela middendorffiana, however, is distinct because its flowers are pale yellow, rather than pink, and some of its forms have handsome dark markings on their lower petals.
Seeds of weigela species began to arrive in British and European nurseries in the 1840s and nurserymen were quick to introduce selected forms that increased their value as garden plants. Weigela ‘Looymansii Aurea’ has fresh yellow leaves and W. ‘Bristol Ruby’ features bright-red f lowers, whereas W. f lorida ‘Foliis Purpureis’ bears dull, darkpurple leaves—ver y useful in mixed plantings. There were also several forms with variegated leaves, which make exceptionally fine plants in themselves, but also combine well with almost everything else in a border. The selection known as W. ‘Florida Variegata’ is widely available, much planted and always a reliable performer.
Weigelas are wonderful garden plants, but they make fairly large shrubs, reaching 5ft– to 12ft in height and usually f lowering only once, with a few extra f lowers dribbling on into autumn, if you are lucky. Their size and leafiness are fine for large gardens—rather like their cousins the philadelphus or mock oranges—but they may not earn their place in a smaller space. Hack them back if you wish, but they bloom on last year’s new growths, so you will lose out on next year’s f lowers unless you prune them immediately after flowering, then put away your secateurs and let your weigelas grow back freely.
In recent years, plant-breeders have got to work on weigelas and come up with a vast range of excellent cultivars that are far more useful in gardens of all sizes. Larger clusters, larger individual f lowers, repeat f lowering, new colours and shor ter growth—these improvements hav
