Hello! I hope you’re all doing well.
I like to start off with the old saying “In like a lion, out like a lamb” this saying has been passed down through the centuries for the month of March.
This means March is a month of change in the seasons, weather and a change in your gardens.
This month straddles the end of winter and beginning of spring. You can probably see some of your perennials poking up. I went for a walk around my gardens and saw some coming up. I love that feeling when you see them pop up after a long winter with not a lot of color showing.
The shrub I would like to talk about is a Fothergilla, there are many kinds. I’m going to focus on Mt. Airy Fothergilla, a very nice dwarf shrub.
Mt. Airy gets 3-5’ and 3-4’ wide it’s a mounded plant with dark green leaves. The bloom time of this shrub is April to May it is tipped with white flowers (1 to 3 inches long). This shrub can be planted in full sun to part shade. It likes well-drained soil. It is a low maintenance shrub and turns excellent shades of yellow, orange and red-purple in fall.
Fothergilla ‘Mount Airy’ was discovered by plantsman Michael A. Dirr at the Mt. Airy Arboretum in Cincinnati, Ohio.