Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Lookin’ for love with native shrubs
A long time ago in another life, I worked in a factory and listened to country music for 10 hours a day. The year was, uh, a long time ago! The song was “Lookin’ for Love in all the wrong places” and highlighted in the movie Urban Cowboy! No, you don’t have to click on it!! Tee Hee
Anyway, I heard it the other day as I was looking at some shrubs. I wanted native and wasn’t finding what I wanted, so I started singing in my head, because that’s better than out loud, and the lyrics became “looking for love in all native places”.
So, where am I going with this? To Little Henry!
“Little Henry” is a useful, and might I add adorable, native plant with lots of potential for the home landscape. It prefers moist soils (think the flooding of this season) and will tolerate wet conditions. And easy peasy! It’ll grow in full sun to full shade, and requires little pruning or other maintenance.
Little Henry is a Sweetspire Itea virginica that has lightly scented, pure white flowers that shoot like fireworks in early summer. Its mounded, compact growing to just 3 feet tall and wide.
It’s pollinator friendly AND it even has fall foliage of oranges and reds! Photo below courtesy of George Weigel
Here’s the one caveat, it’s rated a zone 5 plant, so, if you live in 4a or 3, you can try it but make sure you plant it in a protected area and mulch it well! I think it’s worth a shot! Oh and another thing, deer don’t care for it!
‘Garnet’ is another Sweetspire (itea virginica). It grows to about 4 feet tall and 5 feet wide.
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What’s happening in YOUR garden? I’ve noted that the tomatoes have been a bit slower this year. How about you?