317Grow Blog
Read . Grow . Thrive
April's plant of the month is dwarf fothergilla, one of my all-time favorite shrubs. Its fragrant puff-ball flowers emerge in April before the leaves unfold, and the blossoms remain until May. I could have chosen dwarf fothergilla for many different months. The leaves have a unique scalloped shape and retain a lovely green with a pale underside through the summer. In the fall, the shrub practically bursts into flame with a range of yellows, oranges, and reds that changes with sun exposure.
This month's featured plant is one of my favorite perennials. Epimedium is a adaptable, four season, shade loving, drought tolerant spreading perennial that makes a great bed edge or groundcover. Did I mention that it has almost no pest and disease problems, and that deer and rabbits leave it alone? And it has unique spring flowers. It deserves a spot in any landscape with shade, and it's truly a shame it isn't more widely known in Indiana.
In mid to late winter a haze of red and yellow spreads across vernal witch hazel. There are other early blooming shrubs with showier flowers, such as the popular forsythia, but nothing brings new color to the landscape earlier than vernal witch hazel. There are three main types of witch hazels available commercially. Common witch hazel is native to the eastern U.S. (including Indiana), but it blooms late in the fall, so we aren't interested in it for February.
Butterfly weed has a PR problem, because if all you hear is its name, the weed part is a bit of a turnoff. But it‘s a gorgeous addition to any perennial garden, and pollinators absolutely love it. It’s a tough plant too, which makes it a favorite for rain gardens, bioswales, and low-maintenance, natural style perennial borders.
Tulip tree, also known as tulip poplar is Indiana’s state tree. It’s also an attractive, landscape-friendly shade tree that grows at a decent pace and is native to Indiana. Plus it has cool-looking flowers that are a huge hit with bumblebees! It’s a winner all around, as long as you have the space and sun it needs.
If you ask someone what their favorite tree is, there’s good chance that they will name a spring-flowering beauty. And of those spring bloomers, flowering dogwood is a classic crowd-pleaser. With its snowy white or soft pink blossoms, flowering dogwood stands as a sign that spring has fully arrived at last.
Fragrant sumac is an adaptable, low-maintenance shrub perfect for even the toughest situations. It thrives even planted in clay, surrounded by asphalt, and battered and dried by full sun. It spreads to form colonies that retain slopes and block out weeds. As long as you don’t plant it in a bog, it will hold the line and even bring some spring and fall surprises just about anywhere.
Our favorite spring-blooming tree here at 317Grow is probably Serviceberry. The white flowers are a crowd-pleaser, the dark red berries are delicious, the fall color is unbeatable, and it's a native species for Indiana. It's hard to get much better than that. There are a few different species of Serviceberry growing in North America. The Canadian Serviceberry sticks closer to the east coast, while the Allegheny Serviceberry extends inland all the way to Minnesota and Iowa.
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