{"id":11085,"date":"2020-06-16T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=11085"},"modified":"2020-05-11T21:10:56","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T01:10:56","slug":"four-landscape-shrubs-that-are-early-summer-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2020\/06\/16\/four-landscape-shrubs-that-are-early-summer-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Landscape Shrubs That Are Early Summer Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Aesculus parviflora<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora<\/em>) is one of our finest early summer native flowering shrubs for sun or shady sites. It is a dense, mounded, suckering, deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub which grows 6-12 feet tall and 15-18 feet spread. It flaunts unique palmate green leaves (5-7 leaflets) and white 10-12 inch tall floral candles. The dynamic bottlebrush\u00a0 florets reveal conspicuous red anthers and pinkish filaments. Glossy inedible, pear-shaped husks containing nuts (buckeyes) appear in early fall. Finally, the foliage turns yellow in autumn. (Zones 4-8)<\/p>\n

Summersweet (Clethra alnifolia<\/em>) is a deciduous native shrub found in the wild in moist woodlands, stream banks and seashores from coastal Maine to Florida and west to Texas (Zones 3-9). This rounded, suckering, densely-branched, deciduous shrub grows to 3-6\u00a0 feet (less frequently to 8 feet) tall and is noted for producing a mid-summer bloom show of sweetly fragrant white (or pink),\u00a0 2-6 inches long, upright flower panicles (racemes). Flowers give way to dark brown seed capsules which often persist into winter. Serrate, obovate to oblong, glossy, dark green 3-4 inch long leaves. Expect an attractive yellow to golden brown fall leaf color. Flowers attract to butterflies and bees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis<\/em>) is a deciduous native shrub with an open-rounded shrubby form that typically grows 6-12 feet tall (occasionally to 20 feet).\u00a0 Tiny, tubular, 5-lobed, fragrant white flowers appear in dense, spherical, long-stalked flower heads (to 1.5 inches in diameter) in early summer. Long, projecting styles give the flower heads a distinctively pincushion-like appearance. Flower heads attractive bees and butterflies. Flower heads mature into hard spherical ball-like fruits consisting of multiple tiny two-seeded nutlets persist through most winters. Ovate to elliptic glossy bright green 4-6 inches long leaves form in pairs or whorls in late spring (May). (Zones 5-9)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chastetree (Vitex agnus-castus<\/em>) is typically grown in warm winter climates as a vase-shaped, deciduous shrub to 10-15 feet tall or trained as a single trunk tree to 20 feet tall. This\u00a0non-native will grow as a 3-5 feet tall herbaceous perennial in colder parts of the U.S. (zones 5). Its\u00a0grayish-green aromatic, palmately compound leaves are comprise of\u00a0 5-7 lance-shaped leaflets (each leaflet to 6 inches long). In early- to mid- summer 9-12 inch floral panicles of tiny, fragrant, lavender to pale violet flowers attract loads of nectar hungry butterflies and pollinators. (Zones 6-9)<\/p>\n\n\n

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Buttonbush (Cephalanthus<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora) is one of our finest early summer native flowering shrubs for sun or shady sites. It is a dense, mounded, suckering, deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub which grows 6-12 feet tall and 15-18 feet spread. It flaunts unique palmate green leaves (5-7 leaflets) and white 10-12 inch tall floral candles. The dynamic bottlebrush\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[444,747,1319,1351,1015,749,1255,299,710,144,778,674,806,665,1525,774,745,853,551,627,843,1060,812,601,729,723,777,630,705,706,646,1184,7,1085,819,455],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11085"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12500,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11085\/revisions\/12500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}