Hortus III lists around 100 different species in the northern hemisphere! 'Froebelli' is a cultivar like 'Anthony Waterer,' both of which are crosses of Spiraea albiflora and S. japonica. 'Snowmound' is a cultivar of S. nipponica (Tosa spiraea). There are innumerable crosses and variations within different species of spiraea. But of the three you listed Froebel and Goldmound tend to have unbranched to lightly branched stems where Snowmound is branched with heavier stems. As far as shade tolerance, A. W. has tolerated considerable shade in my yard, but certainly does fine in full sun. There are undoubtedly others with good shade tolerance. A. W. is slightly smaller than Froebel at maturity but has more intensely colored blooms. Disease-wise, a few feet from the A. W. all of my Snowmounds have been affected by what I'm guessing to be bot canker, two have died and the other three are so badly damaged that they will be shovel pruned this spring. The A. W.'s are not affected by this at all. I also have a hedge of S. x vanhouttei and a single plant of S. prunifolia in the yard that are not affected, leading me to think that Snowmound is a weaker species. Snowmound gets much taller than the other two, but the time from planting to mature size is probably similar. Spiraeas are generally pretty tough plants for this area (and many others!). hortster

first they are cheap plants .... i would do the old cost/benefit ratio .. and decide if 2 or 3 hours per plant is worth the 5 or 10 bucks it would cost to buy replacements.. if in fact you need that many spirea ... presuming you do .... after bloom ... as mine just are in zone 5 ... i would prune them back hard ... to make it easy to dig around them... in the alternative, at moving time .. take a rope... and wind it around the plant.. and tighten it all up so as to be able to work at the trunk area ....then move it and release the plant ... and i would move them in october .... around the time that the trees start turning in zone 5 .... when it is just going into dormancy .... or as soon as the ground is diggable in spring ..... i literally ripped two big plants from the front of the house... dragged them to a new hole.. threw them in .. and watered them once or twice.. and they never looked back.. some dieback from the rough handling.. but otherwise.. they didnt care.. they are not a foo foo plant... so if you do it.. dont worry about them too much ... if you need .... learn how to dig and care for them after.. if you dont have that experience ... good luck ken

At this stage all you can do is be sure they go into the winter well hydrated. Keep them watered until the ground freezes. Hopefully we'll get some fall rains.. Usually, the damage you describe will not harm the roses or tree in the long term. If it continues year after year it might weaken them. Other environmental factors also play a role. Extreme heat, drought etc. Check out the website I gave you on your geranium post. There is a wealth of info there. Search Japanese Beetles on the extension website. Good luck in your gardening and your quest for gardening knowledge. It's a journey which never ends.

No need to look for buds as the plant back-buds profusely after being pruned back hard; and, since it blooms on new growth, no need to worry about a hard pruning depriving you of blooms for an entire growth cycle. Something I wrote about how plants age vs how animals age, and why cutting a plant back hard rejuvenates it: We tend to think of the age of plants in the same manner we think of age of age in humans or animals, chronologically. We, like plants, go through several life stages - embryonic, juvenile, adolescent (intermediate in plants), and mature, are human stages roughly mirrored in plants. Where we vary greatly is in the way our cells age. In animals, body cells all mature at approximately the same speed. Plants grow by consecutive divisions of cells at the growing points (meristems), so their various parts are different ages (the top of the plant, or the ends of branches and stems are younger than the basal (lowest part, just above roots) portions, chronologically, but there is another way of aging plants. The ontogenetic age of plants is related to how many times a cell has to divide to make that particular portion of tissue. Basically, the closer the tissue is to the roots the younger it is ontogenetically, even though chronologically, it is the oldest. Why is this important & how does it apply to rejuvenation? Dormant buds retain the ontogenetic age at which they were formed & retain the same vigor as well. When numerous stems/branches are pruned back hard, production of a hormone (auxin) that suppressed the growth of the dormant juvenile (and very vigorous) buds is greatly diminished. When he removed the source of the hormone (primarily the growing tips of the stems) the dearth of auxin causes another hormone (cytokinin - an antagonist to auxin) to become dominant, which activates the dormant buds nearer the roots which retained the vigorous growth characteristics of a juvenile plant, causing the plant to respond with what is actually vigorous juvenile growth. Those of you who are familiar with rejuvenation pruning of multi-stemmed shrubs in the landscape are familiar with the procedure, but might not have known the actual mechanism which drives the results. It's typical for plants that grow in the shape of a flame or a pyramid standing on its point to be sparsely foliated proximal to the widest part of the plant and almost fully foliated distal to the widest part of the plant for 2 reasons. A) Apical dominance dictates the plant will spend something like 2/3 of the sun's energy it trapped by way of photosynthesis on the top 1/3 of the plant. B) The widest part of the plant shades the branches and stems proximal to that point. Al