Itea virginica ‘Sarah Eve’

Itea virginica, the Virginia sweetspire, is a native shrub of eastern wetlands and streambanks, grown for arching, fragrant white flower spikes in early summer and brilliant fall color. 'Sarah Eve' is the exception in the family, the first pink sweetspire: the small flowers are essentially white, but they are carried on rosy-pink pedicels that tint the whole arching raceme a soft, distinctive pale pink, a color no other Itea offers.

The pink-flushed form was found by Nancy Bissett of The Natives, the well-known Florida native-plant nursery, who discovered the plant in central Florida and named the selection for her daughter. Woodlanders later introduced 'Sarah Eve' to the wider trade. Beyond the tinted flowers, the plant carries dark green foliage with a purplish cast and tends to be tardily deciduous, holding the leaves late, and settles into a moderate shrub of four to six feet in the moist border.

Everything else that makes sweetspire valuable comes along with the novelty. The fragrant spires draw bees and butterflies in early summer, the seeds later feed birds, and in fall the purplish-green foliage colors up before dropping late, deciduous in most of the range and semi-evergreen in the Deep South. Like the rest of the species, 'Sarah Eve' loves moisture and takes wet ground without complaint.

Use 'Sarah Eve' as a conversation piece and a soft-colored accent in a moist border, a rain garden, or a native planting, in sun or semi-shade, where the pale pink racemes can be met at close range. Give the plant steady moisture and pair with other moisture-lovers such as clethra, winterberry, and swamp azalea. Sun brings the best flowering and fall color.

Flowering photo courtesy of the Missouri Botanical Garden.