The summersweets are among the most fragrant of American shrubs, native to the moist woods, swamp edges, and pond margins of the eastern United States, where the white summer spikes scent whole acres of low ground. Country people knew the plant as Sweet Pepperbush, for the peppercorn-like seed heads, and as Summersweet, for the honey-and-clove perfume; the crushed flowers even raise a soft lather in water and once served as a woodland soap.
Summersweet, Clethra alnifolia, is one of the great fragrant natives of the eastern United States, a shrub of moist woods and pond edges whose white summer spikes carry a honey-and-clove perfume across the whole garden. Colonists called the plant Sweet Pepperbush, for the peppercorn-like seed heads that follow, and Summersweet, for the scent; the flowers even lather softly in water and once served as a field soap.
Lady fern is one of the easiest and most graceful of the deciduous ferns, a soft, lacy fountain of finely divided, light green fronds that rise in a loose clump from spring into fall. Athyrium filix-femina brings a fresh, feathery texture to the shade garden and asks almost nothing in return.
A miniature of the lady fern, Athyrium filix-femina 'Minutissimum' keeps every bit of the species' lacy grace at a fraction of the size, building a dense little tuft of delicate, light green fronds just eight to ten inches high. The fine texture and small scale make this dwarf fern a jewel for the front of a shaded bed.
White baneberry earns the better-known name doll's eyes from the fruit: in late summer each white, pea-sized berry carries a single dark stigma scar, set on a thickened, coral-red stalk, so a whole cluster seems to stare back. A clump-forming native perennial of rich eastern woodlands, Actaea pachypoda opens fluffy white racemes above divided foliage in late spring, then trades flowers for that startling, long-lasting fruit display.
Hardiness
Zones 3–7
Light
Part Shade / Full Shade
Height
1–3 ft.
Spread
2–3 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Perennial
Traditional use
pain relief, respiratory support, reproductive health
Aconitum uncinatum, the southern blue monkshood, is an uncommon and long-lived native of the eastern United States, scattered through the Appalachians and Piedmont in rich, moist woods, along streambanks, and in cool seeps. The slender stems ascend and lean, sometimes weakly climbing to several feet, carrying lobed leaves and, in late summer into fall, terminal racemes of medium blue, hooded flowers held on long stalks. The cowl-shaped upper sepal gives the monkshoods their name, and few native wildflowers match this clean, late-season blue.
Many of the finest ornamentals for the southern garden come from the deserts of the Southwest, and this Chihuahuan legume is a quietly handsome example. Acacia neovernicosa is an upright, spreading, thorny shrub clothed in twice-compound leaves so finely divided that the whole plant takes on a soft, smoky texture. The foliage carries a faint varnish, sticky to the touch, which gives the species both its botanical name and its common one, viscid acacia. In spring the branches are studded with small golden puffballs of bloom, abundant and sweetly fragrant, loud with bees on a warm morning.
Set aside the family reputation. Acacia angustissima is the polite, thornless cousin in a clan better known for its armament, a soft green presence where you might brace for spines. Botanists have since moved it to its own genus, Acaciella, but in the trade it keeps the old familiar name. It grows wild across the dry grasslands and open woods of the south-central United States down into Mexico and Central America, carrying itself like a small green fountain of fine, ferny, twice-divided foliage that filters the light rather than blocking it.
Hardiness
Zones 7–9
Light
Full Sun
Height
4–5 ft.
Spread
4–5 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
digestive health, pain relief, topical applications, general wellness
