Clethra tomentosa ‘Woodlander's Sarah’

The summersweets are among the most fragrant of American shrubs, and the southern woolly summersweet, Clethra tomentosa, carries the whole tribe's gifts: colonies of upright stems in moist, acid ground, and terminal spikes of white flowers that pour a honey-and-clove perfume across the July garden. Country people knew the plant as Sweet Pepperbush, for the peppercorn seed heads, and the crushed flowers even raise a soft lather once used as a woodland soap.

'Woodlander's Sarah' adds a painter's touch to that fragrant foundation. The green leaves are boldly speckled and splashed with cream, a stronger, more emphatic variegation than the related 'Creel's Calico', so the whole shrub seems dappled with light even before the flowers open. The story behind the plant is pure Woodlanders: in Charleston County, South Carolina, a young lady named Sarah spotted a single variegated sport standing out among a wild population of ordinary green summersweets, and that lucky eye gave the plant a name and a place in the trade.

Site 'Woodlander's Sarah' where the variegated foliage can brighten a moist, part-shaded corner and the summer fragrance can be met in passing: a pond edge, a shaded walk, or a damp mixed border. The colony spreads gently by root to fill a wet spot, and the leaves light up shade the way few flowering shrubs manage. Pair with ferns, itea, and plain-green companions that let the speckling read.