Chaste tree is a deciduous shrub that brings mid-summer color and fragrance to gardens across zones 6 through 9. Growing 3 to 10 feet tall depending on your climate, it produces loose panicles of tiny, fragrant bluish-lavender flowers from July into August that draw butterflies in waves. In cold-winter areas like zones 5 and 6, where it's not reliably hardy, many gardeners treat it as a woody perennial, cutting it back to the ground each spring and letting it regrow fresh. Its compound, grayish-green foliage provides attractive texture even before the flowers arrive.
Full Sun
Moderate
6-9
120in H x 96in W
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Moderate
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The true draw of chaste tree is its combination of elegance and resilience. Those 5- to 8-inch panicles of fragrant lavender flowers bloom reliably in mid to late summer when many other shrubs are fading, and they attract butterflies like a magnet. In warm climates it becomes a substantial multi-trunked small tree; in colder zones it rewrites itself each spring as a compact woody perennial. There are no serious pests or diseases to worry about, freeing you to focus on enjoying its quiet, understated beauty.
Chaste tree is grown primarily as an ornamental shrub valued for its summer flowering and butterfly attraction. It functions well as a background planting, specimen shrub, or component of mixed borders where its late-season blooms extend color into the dog days of summer.
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In zones 5 and 6 where chaste tree is not reliably winter hardy, prune it back to the ground in early spring and allow it to regrow as a woody perennial. In warmer zones where the shrub survives winter intact, selective pruning after the flowers fade helps maintain a neat, compact form and encourages fuller branching the following season.
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