Clethra tomentosa ‘Woodlander's Sarah’ Allen Bush holding form across the seasons

holding form across the seasons and asking little

bristly-leaved stems carry clusters of intense cobalt-blue flowers

Summersweet has long been a shrub gardeners plant by the nose

mucilaginous roots as a soothing demulcent

has questioned whether the gardenia is truly that hardy

Clethra tomentosa ‘Woodlander's Sarah’ Allen Bush holding form across the seasonsThe 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