Hummingbird Summersweet
Clethra alnifolia ‘Hummingbird’ · a dwarf white summersweet
A compact native summersweet with spikes of fragrant white flowers at the height of summer that butterflies and hummingbirds visit, then golden fall colour. It takes shade, damp soil and clay, making a neat low screen, border or understory shrub. Keep it moist, especially at first; it suckers, but not aggressively.
- Mature size
- 3 × 3 ft
- 0.8 × 1 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 3a–9b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium to wet
- Blooms
- Jul–Aug
- Fall color Oct–Nov
Hummingbird Summersweet at its mature size
A mature Hummingbird Summersweet grows 2 to 4 feet tall and 2 to 5 feet wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: The Morton Arboretum, The Tree Center.
Through the year
What Hummingbird Summersweet looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Dormant · Dec–Apr
Bare twiggy mound with dry seed spikes.
In leaf · May–Jun, Sep
Dense glossy green leaves, no flowers.
In flower · Jul–Aug
Short upright spikes of white flowers over glossy dark green leaves.
Fall · Oct–Nov
Leaves turned golden yellow.
Photos
Growing Hummingbird Summersweet
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Southeast, and the Midwest.
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Good for
- Small space, foundation planting, specimen, rain garden, deer resistant, pollinators, fall color, and fragrant
- Leaves
- Drops its leaves in winter
- Native to
- Eastern and Southern North America
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Hummingbird Summersweet, that’s about 3 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Hummingbird Summersweet in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other summersweets
Hummingbird Summersweet
SummersweetAll drawn to the same scale.