So I thought of this plant as I was working up a mental list of plants for my brother's house. This is a wonderful plant I've spent a lot of time with throughout the seasons and I do enjoy the absolutely bonkers crowds of insects it attracts.
First a picture of the raceme...this one pink, most are white.
Notice that nice little bee.
Why you should look for it and plant it: It's a great and versatile shrub. It can be around 2 meters tall and just slightly smaller in spread. There are some notable cultivars like 'Hummingbird' that are around a meter in height and a little wider more mounded looking. What makes this such a nice shrub is that it has nice dark green foliage, great looking flowers, a big bee draw, and the ability to handle clay soils.
'Hummingbird' I believe.
Now, the informations on the interwebs will tell you (and yes I did that on purpose) that it prefers wet the moist soils and to avoid placing in dry places. This is probably a good rule to follow but I have seen these situated on some very dry places but in nice shade and they still seem to do very well. If you have a particularly low spot, this should be a great and easy plant. It should handle wet clay well too, which can be a problem soil when looking for an ornamental shrub (Lindera can get a little crazy...). This shrub is also later in the season to flower, they are just getting into that now in mid July. A great sequence plant really if you are looking for some white colors well after a lot of your spring flowers have gone.
The one downside I can think of is that it does leaf out fairly late in the season, if you're me, you appreciate having another plant to watch leaf out :).
It is called sweet pepperbush for two reasons. It has a kind of cloying sweet smell, that I love and am looking forward to smelling VERY soon. Pepperbush because it has a little bit of winter interest with the seed pods that look a little bit like peppercorns.
So to sum up for the practical application of this plant, it can be planted in pretty shady places, but can also do well with full sun if provided a little moisture. That being said, planting it on the south or west side of your place is probably silly.
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For the taxonomy/nerdier crowd:
A member of the Clethraceae family, this would then be the ... yes, type genus for the family. At one point Clethra was considered the only member of the family. The family now includes the genus Purdiaea, which is found throughout the Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America.
This particular Clethra is native to much of the eastern United States.
There has been a push to reduce the number of species designations (having seen some peoples idea of what qualifies as a unique species I have to agree...) so China has gone from 35 recognized species to 7 for Clethra...crazy right. According to Wiki the USDA recognizes just 2 here...though I wouldn't trust the USDA in plant ID...just saying. After looking through Tropicos.org ...well, who knows, maybe we've gone a little slap happy with the different species and varieties here eh?
Well that's all. If you haven't checked out Tropicos.org I HIGHLY recommend it. I get lost in there sometimes...an amazing look into botany, taxonomy, and its development.
