Mutant
MacWilliam
Posts: 27
in Plants
Hello there, keen gardeners.
In my garden grow a very strange specimen. I do not know the name but it is quite a common bush.
It has been there for years and I always thought that maybe I planted two of them all those years ago. This spring I did a bit of trimming and I can only find the one plant. Yet, half is white, half is pinkish - red. On closer inspection, some flowers are half/half. That is a bit strange.
If anybody knows why this happens, even the name of the bush for starters would be welcomed
Northern Scotland
0
Posts
Spiraea shirobana springs to mind
just googled it. Methinks I'm right.
And the reason for the dual colour is a genetic mistake in part of the bush. This is how new varieties of things have arisen in the past. It is called a 'sport'. It happens quite often in Chrysanthemums where say a red flowering plant will throw a yellow variant.
A lot of variegated shrubs have arisen this way.
Thanks people. Spiraea shirobana sport I have then.
It seems this shrub naturally produces both pink and white flowers - http://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/spiraea-japonica-shirobana/2602.html
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
Oh no. I thought we had the sporty type, and it now turns out to be the standard type. dam.....