Fothergilla ‘Mt. Airy’
Early-spring bottle-brush blooms of fothergilla 'Mt. Airy.'
* Common name: Fothergilla ‘Mt. Airy’
* Botanical name: Fothergilla major ‘Mt. Airy’
* What it is: Why, oh why, don’t we plant more of these? Fothergilla is a sorely under-used native flowering shrub that gets short, white, bottle-brush-like flowers in April and then stunning gold to gold/orange/red leaves in late fall. A witch hazel relative.
* Size: 5 to 6 feet tall and wide but can be kept smaller with light pruning.
* Where to use: Versatile in many settings from full sun to part shade… even tolerates damp soil. Nice enough to serve as a foundation shrub but equally at home in a mixed border garden or massed in the dappled light of a wooded area. Competes fairly well with tree roots.
* Care: Needs acid soil. Work sulfur into the bed at planting, then an annual spring scattering of an acidifying granular fertilizer such as Holly-tone or Holly Care. Keep watered until the plant is established, then it’s reasonably drought resistant. Hardly ever gets bugs or disease. Prune, if needed, right after the plant flowers.
* Great partner: Pairs nicely with the spiky form and fall color of ornamental grasses (red switchgrass in sun, golden variegated Hakone grass in shadier spots). Late-season red mums make a good perennial-flower partner.
'Mt. Airy's' fall foliage.
6 dwarf fothergilla ‘mt airy’ were planted in my garden spring a year ago. Only three have blossoms. Why? None has been pruned.
Elizabeth,
Mine isn’t blooming at all… and it’s been a reliable bloomer for years. I suspect the unusually warm February pushed along bud development too far, then those nights in the teens the second weekend of March were cold enough to damage or kill the buds.
Lots of other things can cause shrubs not to bloom, though. I did a piece on that a few years ago that’s archived here: https://georgeweigel.net/favorite-past-garden-columns/why-didnt-my-shrubs-bloom.