Acair Fearann

Garden for any length of time, and one quickly racks up a list of plants that, one feels, people ought to use more.  Right near the top of my list is the (Sweet) Autumn clematis, also known as Old Man’s Beard.  This fall! flowering New England native is fast growing, capable of hitting thirty feet, able to withstand mild drought, heat, and -20F winters without die-back.  And if it does die back, gets broken, accidentally mown, or pruned by default because it is another plant that must be pruned?  It is capable of coming back up from the base and blooming on new growth.  The flowers are sprays of pure white with a powerful, sweet scent reminiscent of grapes.  It starts blooming at the end of August and will continue throughout September.  The various pollinators love it but I have yet to see anything eating it (though it clambers over a rose routinely defoliated by aphids and Japanese Beetles).  About the only thing it likes is shady feet, but even that is something one can work around: I planted a seedling (about three inches in height) in full sun this spring, before this wickedly hot and dry summer; it took a little while, but it is already three feet tall.  Why it isn’t used for privacy screens, patio fences, and a multitude of other hard uses?  A mystery.

On an 8 foot tall arbor, the last bit of sun just hitting it.  The pink below it is a big sedum, the blue/white flowers are white wood asters.  This clematis is about eight or nine years old and has gotten cut down at least once (accidentally!).

A detail of one of the sprays.

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Also known as Actaea racemosa, Black Cohosh, or Bugbane is one of the Northeast native plants that deserves much wider use.  It happens to be one of my garden favourites, so perhaps I am biased.  Blooming in late July into August its towering candles of ivory add an incredibly dynamic element to the garden as they often bend and twist, earning it the local name: Black Snakeroot.  The various pollinators, from bees to beetles, adore it.  Its flowers can easily last several weeks with the seedheads remaining through the winter as architectural elements, while its heavily cut foliage works as a good backdrop for smaller plants.

It happens to flourish in the heavy, poor draining, partially shaded clay of this area.  In this it is unlike almost every other garden plant out there!  A big specimen should be treated as a herbaceous shrub, as they can easily be 2+ feet tall and as wide, with the flower stalks hitting seven feet.  It is also very long lived.  Conversely, it is also slow to reach flowering maturity, expect to wait several years when starting them from seed. It is drought and rain tolerant. About the only thing it doesn’t tolerate is a heavy winter mulch layer on its crown, treat it like a fern.  It can be very late in coming up in the spring. 

Here is a small one in amongst an Oriental lily and some monkshood, the red in the background is a double-file viburnum:

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