A LITTLE MORE LIFE
Summersweet
Clethra alnifolia
Fragrant summer flowers feed native bees and butterflies, and the fruit provides food for birds.
MAKE IT FEEL AT HOME
A spot to thrive.
Likes acidic, moist soil; can form a thicket. Smaller cultivars need less space.
- Sunlight
- Part sun & shade
- Soil moisture
- Moist to wet / Average moisture
- Mature size
- 5–10 ft tall · 4–6 ft wide
- Season of interest
- Summer
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 3–9
- Garden role
- A fragrant flowering shrub
ONE GOOD SWAP
Instead of japanese spirea.
Spiraea japonica
Try summersweet for a fragrant flowering shrub.
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Photo credits & licenses
Summersweet: Susan Strine · CC BY 2.0
Japanese spirea: Milada · CC-BY-SA 2.0
Resized, converted to WebP, and cropped in the layout. Each photo retains its listed license. All photo credits