The Shrub Bursting With Stunning Fall Colors That Birds & Pollinators Love

Shrubs that offer year-round interest can be hard to come by, so when you find one, you'll want to add it to your yard right away — like Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica). Offering gorgeous fall color, Virginia sweetspire is a shrub that will attract birds to your yard for fun feathered sightings, providing them with a rich source of food in its seeds. Birds also like to build their nests in these upright shrubs, as well as using the arching branches for cover. Meanwhile, butterflies and other pollinators like hummingbirds are drawn to Virginia sweetspire's fragrant and showy flower spires in late spring and early summer.

Also known as Virginia willow, this deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub produces fall foliage in fiery shades of bronze, orange, red, and burgundy. And when the leaves eventually fall, colorful twigs are revealed, so gardeners will also want to add this plant to their list of shrubs that provide winter interest. Native to a swath of the U.S. ranging from the mid-Atlantic through the southeast and to Texas, this favorite of birds can be grown by gardeners in USDA Hardiness Zones 5 to 9 who have the needed soil, moisture, and sun conditions.

Virginia sweetspire is one gorgeous flowering shrub that thrives in the shade, as long as it receives at least two hours of direct sun each day. It can also grow in full sun. This bird-friendly plant prefers soils that have a high humus content and that remain consistently moist or wet. Acidic soils are best for these colorful native shrubs, and they will happily grow in a wide range of soil types, including sandy, loamy, or clay soils. This pollinator- and wildlife-friendly star of the fall landscape can even grow in soils with poor drainage.

Virginia sweetspire can be used in mass plantings for an eye-catching display of fall color. It forms thickets that can be used to grow colorful autumn hedges that are helpful to birds and other wildlife. They can also be installed as foundation plantings or filler shrubs, or put to excellent use in pollinator-friendly rain gardens. Use Virginia sweetspire as a substitute for non-native and invasive shrubs to avoid planting at all costs, like butterfly bush, burning bush, or Japanese barberry. Reaching up to 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide, there are also compact cultivars of Virginia sweetspire for smaller spaces, such as 'Beppu' and 'Shirley's Compact'.