Steeplebush

Spiraea tomentosa

Steeplebush earns its name from the tall, narrow, steeple-shaped pink flower spikes that bloom in July and August when most shrubs are done for the season. The color is a deep rose-pink that reads bright even from a distance, carried on fuzzy, woolly stems. the 'tomentosa' in the name describes the dense soft hairs on the undersides of the leaves and the young stems. It's a genuinely distinctive plant, not just another white-flowered summer shrub. It grows naturally in wet meadows, stream banks, and sunny swamp edges. the saturated spots where most flowering shrubs fail. In the garden, use it at the edge of a rain garden or in a consistently moist low spot. The dense flowering attracts a wide range of pollinators from mid-July through August, filling a gap in the pollinator calendar that's often underserved. Deer avoid it.