A Proven Winners® ColorChoice® Flowering Shrubs variety, Vitex Rock Steady™ is a deciduous shrub with unique foliage and flowers. Extremely long blooming, the attractive shrub flaunts palmate leaves and sets spires of lavender blooms for months, from late spring through late fall, typically to first frost. Nectar and pollen rich, the flowers are a food source for pollinators, including butterflies and hummingbirds. Bees also use the flowers to produce honey.
A Vitex agnus-castus variety, commonly called chastetree, chaste tree, or chasteberry, Rock Steady has a rapid growth rate and an open, upright habit. It's an excellent specimen but is shown to best effect when grouped or massed in mixed beds and borders.
An easy-grow, easy-care shrub, chastetree grows best in sunny locations with moist, well-draining soil, but it's tolerant of most soils, including clay. Rock Steady is deer resistant and heat and drought tolerant, but it's also surprisingly hardy. It blooms on new wood, so any desired pruning should be done in early spring. Deadheading spent blooms encourages reblooming.
