Red Prince Weigela

If red in the garden is your favorite color, you will adore the ‘Red Prince’ Weigela. This vigorous and easy shrub has the purest red flowers of all the weigela bushes, and they hold their wonderful color perfectly, never fading to purple, as so many other ‘red’ varieties do. The leaves are a crisp deep green, making the perfect backdrop to that rich flower color. It quickly develops into a medium-sized bush, growing between 5 and 8 feet tall, depending on how it is pruned, your climate, and its garden location. Summer flowering, the red flowers have no scent, but they are very attractive to hummingbirds, so have your camera ready, and bring out the children to enjoy the scene of these marvelous creatures feeding. This great easy-care and reliable shrub brings color into your garden for months – can’t be anything wrong with that, right?

Growing the ‘Red Prince’ Weigela

Size and Appearance

The ‘Red Prince’ Weigela is a deciduous shrub, growing between 5 and 8 feet tall and wide, with many arching branches growing from the base. These are thick and sturdy, with a roughly textured bark. It has medium-sized elliptical leaves, about 4 inches long, produced in clusters all along the branches. The flowers are carried on short side branches produced on stems of the previous recent years, and they are in clusters of 3 to 5. The flowers are large, up to 1½ inches long, funnel-shaped, with a flaring mouth made up of 5 lobes. Each flower is well over one inch across. Both the inside and the outside of the flower is a clean, bright red, without any purple tones, and the flower parts are pure white, standing out beautifully. Unlike almost every other Weigela sold as red, in the Red Prince Weigela the flowers stay red even when they fall, so that delicious raspberry coloring just keeps ongoing. Flowering takes place chiefly from the middle of spring on to early summer, and, especially if you prune out the flowering stems after they have finished, more blooms will be produced later in the summer and into fall.

Using the ‘Red Prince’ Weigela in Your Garden

Grow the Red Prince Weigela among other shrubs in a mixed shrub bed or use it alone to create informal hedges and summer screening. It is a great way to hide an old fence, or an unsightly wall, turning ‘blah’ into beauty. To make an informal flowering hedge or screen, plant in a row 3 to 4 feet apart. The branches can also be bent back to attach to a sunny wall, making a great display and taking up virtually no space.

Hardiness

This plant is hardy even in zone 4, and thrives everywhere, right into zone 8.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Plant the ‘Red Prince’ Weigela in a warm, sheltered sunny place. It will grow in a little shade, but flowering may be reduced. It grows in any well-drained soil, and it is an especially good choice for heavy clay soils, which it enjoys growing in, as long as they aren’t constantly wet. It enjoys hot, exposed places, where it blooms at its best.

Maintenance and Pruning

The ‘Red Prince’ Weigela has no significant pests or diseases, and deer leave it alone. Weigela should be pruned immediately after the first crop of flowers is over. Remove most of the older branches – those with lots of crowded side shoots. Shorten back younger branches, cutting back to where strong new stems will have started to grow out. These should not be cut until the following year, as they are the shoots that will carry most of next year’s flowers. For a more formal hedge you can trim harder, but if you trim regularly flowering will suffer – it is best to grow this plant informally.

History and Origin of the ‘Red Prince’ Weigela

The ‘Red Prince’ Weigela is a hybrid plant, created from several species of weigela. Most of its parentage is from Weigela florida, a plant that grows wild in Korea, and it is often listed simply as a variety of that species. Weigela florida was introduced into America by the Arnold Arboretum in 1905. It was collected by John George Jack, who travelled to the East for the Arboretum, to Korea and Japan, collecting plants and seeds. The collector Ernest Wilson, who also worked at times for the Arnold Arboretum, sent seed to England in 1918, and still today European and English plants are noticeably different from American ones. We don’t know the exact parentage of the variety called ‘Red Prince’, but we do know that it is considered one of the very best weigela hybrid plants, notable for its profuse flowering and bold clean red flowers.

Buying the ‘Red Prince’ Weigela at the Tree Center

Our plants are grown from stem pieces, to carefully preserve the exact genetic makeup of this plant, which could never be grown cheaply from seed. If you love easy-care shrubs that grow anywhere and thrive, then you – and those hummingbirds – will love the Red Prince Weigela. Order now, because this popular variety sells out fast.