Dwarf Fothergilla

Fothergilla gives you three seasons out of one shrub. Fothergilla gardenii opens honey-scented white bottlebrush flowers before the leaves come out in spring, carries blue-green textured foliage through the whole summer, and finishes with a mix of yellow, orange, and red in fall. It grows 3 to 4 feet tall and wide in part shade, hardy from Zone 5 through Zone 8, and fills out over three or four seasons.

The flowers open in early to mid spring, held upright along bare stems, and the fragrance carries a few feet on a still day. They come out when little else is flowering and last a couple of weeks.

Summer is where most flowering shrubs go quiet, and this is where the foliage does the work. The leaves are ribbed and slightly puckered with scalloped edges, a soft blue-green, coarse enough in texture to hold a bed together next to fine-leaved plants. Fall color often shows all three tones on the same leaf and holds late.

Fothergilla is native to the Southeast and wants acidic, moist, well-drained soil with organic matter in it. Alkaline ground turns the leaves yellow and stalls the plant. It takes more sun in the north, which deepens the fall color, and it needs afternoon shade further south. Deer leave it alone, and it handles moderate salt.