An outstanding flowering shrub that provides soft color in the summer. Large double flowers with a lovely pink blush are held on upright slender branches with toothy green leaves. A showy specimen. Works well as a flowering hedge or screen. Deciduous. Blushing Bride Rose of Sharon came from Quero, Belluno in Italy. The large, double pink, carnation-like flowers are produced in great abundance all summer long on this easily grown deciduous shrub. The Rose of Sharon, a cold hardy shrubby Hibiscus species, has a naturally vase shaped habit when young but becomes rounded and full with age and it can also be trained into a tree form with careful pruning. These heirloom pass-along plants are quite tolerant of most well-drained, fertile soils in sunny sites and are resistant to periodic, short term drought once well-established. It became known as Jimmy's Double Pink Rose of Sharon because a mom's 4 year old son named Jimmy, picked his mother, Bonnie, a flower and she rooted the cutting long ago. The flowers, even though double, attract bees, hummingbirds and the occassional butterfly. For optimum growth and flowering (like most Hibiscus they flower on new growth) provide Altheas or Rose of Sharon with average to moderate moisture, not soggy, in full sun with a rich fertile, well-drained soil. For larger flowers, though they may be less in number, a hard late winter or spring pruning and fertilizer application can produce vigorous late spring and summer growth with slightly larger showy flowers. Periodic removal of older non productive stems, if needed, will be can be beneficial to make way for new growth as well.