- Height: 4-9 feet; 4-6-foot spread
- Light: Full sun to part shade
- Soil: Moist, sometimes wet
- Bloom: White, summer, alluring musky fragrance
- Fruit: Brown fall capsule
- Foliage: Showy yellow fall
- Landscape: Screen, specimen, border, native or rain garden, along ponds and swampy areas
- Resistance: Deer, salt
- Good alternative to nonnative Butterfly Bush
- Fun fact: Blooms late summer even in shade when few other trees are in bloom
- Photos: Creative Commons
- More information and native range here
Summersweet
Pollinator value: Very High. Hummingbirds, butterflies, beetles, wasps, flies, native bees. Larval host to the White-M Hairstreak and other butterfly and moth species.
Dense, mounded form; slow spreader that works well in a garden setting yet still retains a wild-ish look. Summersweet is a fast grower and can bloom in its first season. Blooms in mid-summer when most plants have finished showing off.
Leaves render an attractive two-toned effect, starting out bright green and maturing to dark green, contrasting beautifully against spikes of white flowers before yellowing in the fall.
Summersweet is noted in Tony Dove and Ginger Woolridge's Essential Native Trees and Shrubs as an "intensely fragrant, summer blooming shrub with good to excellent yellow fall color."