The Sweet Smell of Summer
Oh, how the gardens are alive with butterflies this time of
year! Finally, in the past two weeks, we
are seeing so many fluttering around the nursery searching for nectar. And lucky for us, it’s a living lab. We get to watch and see which plant the
butterflies love the most. Butterfly
plants are the most commonly requested at the nursery. And I hear so many people say the same thing…I
get hoards of butterflies on my Butterfly Bush.
Butterfly Bush is not native, although many people think it is because
it has escaped cultivation and become naturalized. It is not on the invasive list in PA, but it
might be soon.
Summersweet Clethra 'Ruby Spice'
There is a great native shrub that is the perfect substitute
to Butterfly Bush. It goes by the name
Summersweet Clethra, or Clethra alnifolia. It has a similarly shaped flower, but more
cylindrical than pyramidical. The
straight species is white, but one of our favorite cultivars is ‘Ruby Spice’. The best part is the scent…they don’t call it
Summersweet for nothing! You can smell a
large Summersweet shrub before you see it.
And ‘Ruby Spice’ blossoms have such a gorgeous color gradient, rose to
light pink to white. It grows best in
moist conditions but it will tolerate drier conditions once established. It prefers full sun to part shade and in
comparison to Butterfly Bush, it is much more rounded and full all the way to
the ground and topping out at 5-8’. It
is attractive in fall with its yellow fall foliage. Once you get a whiff of it in bloom, you’ll
wish you were a butterfly so you could drink its sweet nectar!
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