Caryopteris, Bluebeard, Blue Mist Spirea 'Longwood Blue'

Incredible plant for the hillside of our backysrd. Careful as the seedlings can easily takeover the garden. Other post indicate that remo...Read Moreval of the flower pods will minimize this. I'll be pulling up a lot of seedlings this growing season. Beautiful plant and as suggested the birds, bees and butterfly flock to it. Also great for preventing the hillside erosion. Drought tolerant and easily survived the icestorm, snowfall and the blizzard of last winter.

Ok, so I researched this baby as a highly drought tolerant plant that likes full sun. I live in Fresno County which is Zone 9 on USDA zo...Read Morene.

Great plan for part shade/part sun. Uses less water than many plants.

I love this plant but it doesn't like the hot sun. It burns to a crisp. Can't use it in my sunny focal points. I'll have to plant trees to put this baby in my front yard. It's currently among the blueberries in a part sun patio/back yard area. They handle transplanting well. If it's already in the ground and you want to move it, make sure you take the dirt with the roots on the shovel and put it in the ground as is to ease any shock it might get. It likes to wilt when it's stressed or needs water. Comes right back though. Too much water can cause root rot so make sure it has good drainage.

It can withstand not having water but once a week but I wouldn't call that drought tolerant. It will save some water but not enough when there is water shortage. So if you do want to save more water, this beauty needs to be mulched an inch or two to hold moisture in the ground.

It is easy to propagate from limbs just by putting a semi-woody stem into a cup of water. It sprouts within a week or so. Plant into some soil mix and let it grow there until it's a foot tall then plant in the ground.

Does not appear to be invasive at all unless limbs touch the ground in which case they'd sprout and make babies. Keep lowest limbs trimmed to avoid that. Doesn't appear to re-seed itself that I can see.

Beautiful blue flowers in early spring and in late summer to fall.

I planted two Blue Mist Spiraea this past August and holy smokes (maybe they should name one that), the plants are doing great but are s...Read Morepreading a bit more than I wanted. In fact, I have so many volunteers many from these two plants that I need to do some sorting out. Still, it is a hard plant not to love.

As another comment from PA has noted, the blue spirea in my area (including mine) are thin and die back before summer is over. A few gard...Read Moreeners (including me) have cut them back to the ground to see what will become of them next year. Mine is in a rose garden with no lack of fertilizer and water. I suspect that the increasingly scorching heat here in PA is killing them.