Fothergilla Mt. Airy is a nearly nearby native--native to Virginia and areas south, but it is hardy in New England and almost a perfect shrub.
 
     Mt. Airy's bottlebrush-like spring flowers are sweetly fragrant, and its leathery leaves are an attractive blue-green.  In the fall those leaves turn shades of bright yellow, orange, red and purple, sometimes on the same leaf.
 
     Mt. Airy is a nice, low shrub, sometimes hard to find in the native plant world.  It rarely hits 6-feet tall and makes a great addition to the side of a house or as a garden specimen.
 
     Fun fact: Mt. Airy is named after the Mt. Airy Arboretum in Cincinnatti, where Michael Dirr found it growing in the wild.