Who needs so many varieties of one shrub?

The weigela is one of my favorite spring shrubs.

I love seeing the pink flowers, mostly in June.

Did you know, according to Michael Dirr’s Manual of Woody Landscape Plants , there are now over 170 hybrids of this shrub?.

He writes, “New cultivars are coming primarily from Holland and Canada.”

Who needs so many hybrids of one plant?

History of the Weigela

This shrub came to America in 1848 from England. Three years earlier British plant hunter Robert Fortune had found it in China. He introduced it to the English garden.

There is no question this is a beautiful shrub.

I have grown some of the hybrids in my garden, with mixed results.

Sometines the shrub never grew any bigger than it was when I planted it.

How can that be? It happened.

How often have you heard this kind of reasoning “We do it, just because we can.”

So because we can hybridize, we should increase the number of cultivars of a shrub through hybridizing?

What do you think?

When Fortube brought this shrub to Englabd from Asia, he had no idea hiw popular it woiuld become.