Exochorda or Pearlbush

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the brilliant yellow flowering forsythia. I would also have mentioned the pearlbush or exochorda which was also flowering at the same time, and still is, but I couldn't remember its name so I didn't mention it. I asked Laurie Begg, who gave me the plant in the first place.
Our house faces the northeast, on a gentle slope, and the forsythia is at the east end, say at about one o'clock from the corner, and the pearl bush at the other end, say at eleven o'clock from that corner. Just as I'd never seen the forsythia so spectacular, the same has to be said for the pearlbush. It's been a 10ft. ball of white for weeks. I remember cutting it back hard, to about 5 feet high, February before last. The flowers are on the new growth since, all the way along the 5 feet or so which has grown from the old wood in every direction, creating a spherical effect. I'll cut it back hard again soon, now it's almost finished flowering, and wait expectantly for a repeat show next spring.
Prior to this spring I had little regard for it, thinking it was in the way, a vigorous grower needing pruning, with flowers not keeping in water, so no good as a cut flower. I've changed my opinion, it's well worth the space, and the pruning, just for it's show. I looked it up in the book. It's a native of China, as is the forsythia. So many of our ornamental plants originate from China.