Meadowsweet Leaves Vs. Flowers

Description

• Meadowsweet is a tall plant, rising 3 to 6 feet in height. This stature makes its astilbelike flowers especially dramatic when they appear in mid to late summer. The flowers, valuable for their beauty and fragrance, add value to the plant by attracting pollinators. The crinkled leaflets that make up the pinnate foliage are attractive in their own right, giving individual meadowsweet specimens, which are up to 3 feet wide, a verdant shrubby appearance. White leaf undersides add visual impact when breezes expose them and the leaves' alluring fragrance is an added bonus throughout the growing season.

Culture

• The combined effect of meadowsweet's leaves and flowers gave rise to an alternate common name, queen-of-the-meadow. The plants are vigorous and in the right situations, that vigor has led them to escape from gardens, self-seed readily and naturalize in some regions. Meadowsweet is listed as invasive in Wisconsin and has been troublesome in locations in the Northeast. Flowers are most plentiful in full sun, but the plants will also tolerate part shade. Meadowsweet will leaf out and flower best in well-drained, alkaline soil that is uniformly damp. The plants do not succeed under drought conditions.

Uses

• Even discounting the attraction of the flowers, its tall stature and appealing leaf texture and appearance make meadowsweet a good addition to the back of mixed beds and borders. The fragrant blooms also make excellent cut flowers, justifying the inclusion of meadowsweet in cutting gardens. The complete plant -- leaves and flowers -- can be a valuable component in a rain garden or bog landscape. In naturalized or semi-wild garden areas where meadowsweet is also a good fit, deadhead spent blooms promptly to prevent self-sowing.

Other Meadowsweets

• The Filipendula genus includes other species, many which feature attractive leaves and flowers and bear the meadowsweet label. Among them is the native queen of the prairie (Filipendula rubra), with pink flower plumes that make it even more showy than meadowsweet. Queen of the prairie is hardy in USDA zones 3 through 8, grows 6 to 8 feet tall and features fragrant, bright green leaves. Japanese meadowsweet (Filipendula purpurea), hardy in USDA zones 4 through 9, is shorter, at 4 feet tall and features large red-purple flowerheads.