Clethra (Summersweet)
11 plants in this collection
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![Clethra alnifolia 'Ruby Spice' (pink summersweet), upright rose-pink flower spikes above glossy dark green foliage]()
Clethra alnifolia "Sixteen Candles" $23.00 /Summersweet
- Zones 5–8
- 3–5 ft
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Clethra alnifolia var. tomentosa $20.00 /Coastal Sweetpepper Bush
- Zones 6–9
- 5–8 ft
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Clethra tomentosa ‘Creel's Calico’ $23.00 /Clethra, 'Creel's Calico'
- Zones 7–9
- 3–5 ft
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About the Clethra (Summersweet) Collection
The name comes from klethra, the Greek for alder, given for a leaf that looks the part. Everything else about summersweet is unlike an alder. The plants bloom in July and August, which is the quiet hole in the flowering shrub calendar, and they bloom in fragrant white or pink bottlebrush spikes that a garden hears before anyone sees them, so loud is the traffic of bees working the flowers.
Clethra alnifolia is the Eastern native, a gently suckering shrub of damp woods and pond margins that takes shade, salt wind, and standing water without complaint; 'Ruby Spice' holds the deepest pink of the pink forms and 'Hummingbird' stays low and dense. Clethra tomentosa is the Southern woolly summersweet, and 'Woodlander's Sarah' came out of our own beds. Beyond the natives, Clethra barbinervis from Japan grows into a small tree with mottled, exfoliating bark worth a winter walk past. Give the group moist ground and let them colonize wherever you want damp shade filled.
