Sumacs are the tough native shrubs and small trees of the genus Rhus, grown for a fall display few plants can rival. Their divided, ferny foliage turns the most brilliant scarlet, orange, and burgundy of the season, and many carry upright cones of fuzzy, deep-red fruit that stand through winter. Fast, adaptable, and utterly unfussy, they take on the hard, sunny, dry sites where more refined plants fail.

In the landscape sumacs are the plants for a bold, naturalistic effect on a difficult site. They colonize banks and rough ground, hold soil on a slope, and light up a wild border or the edge of a property in autumn as nothing else can. Their strong, architectural form and coarse leaf are best given room to spread, where the fall color reads across a whole landscape.

We grow sumacs for that unbeatable fall color and their real value to wildlife on the toughest ground. The fruit feeds birds through winter, when little else is available; the flowers draw pollinators in summer; and as pioneering natives they stabilize and enrich poor, disturbed soil. For color and habitat where nothing much wants to grow, sumac is hard to beat.

Give them full sun and room to spread, and expect the vigorous kinds to sucker and colonize, which is exactly what makes them so useful on a bank. Set them among our Drought-Tolerant Plants and Large Shrubs, and find more regional plants in our Southeastern Natives.