4 minute read
Plant Select
Lovely, Low-Fuss Fernbush
A Utah native shrub for diverse landscapes
By Ann Kendall, Plant Select®
There aren’t many summer-blooming shrubs that you can establish in your landscape and then just throw away your hose. (“So long, summer watering!”) But fernbush Chamaebatiaria millefolium isn’t just any shrub. It’s a Utah native plant that’s a chameleon in western yards, looking as attractive in well-manicured landscapes as it does in naturalistic designs.
Some native shrubs can look a little disheveled in traditional landscapes, but fernbush responds well to pruning, making it ideal across design styles. It even can be used as a formal hedge.
“We like to call fernbush the hydrangea of the West,” shares Ross Shrigley, executive director of Plant Select.
“It has rich green foliage and clusters of white flowers, so it has a lush feeling. But unlike hydrangeas, fernbush thrives in our unique western growing conditions with very little water and effort. It’s a distinctly western plant.”
Technically, fernbush isn’t a hydrangea. It’s a primitive member of the rose family. And the less water you give fernbush, the more heavily it blooms! Less water also promotes more compact and upright growth.
Fernbush offers multiple seasons of beauty
Fernbush gets its name from its lacy, fern-like foliage, and its leaves have a sweet fragrance like pine needles.
This attractive native shrub blooms heavily in mid-summer when many other shrubs have stopped flowering, producing showy blooms that beckon to butterflies, native bees and a range of interesting pollinators. When fernbush is done blooming, the spent flowers linger on the stems. You can prune them off for a tidier look, but the spent flowers become seedheads that feed birds and offer interest over the winter. Try leaving some until spring for year-round interest.
Fernbush sheds its leaves gently for winter. Its cinnamon-color branches have visual substance, and you can see next year’s leaf buds, giving fernbush a similar winter look to evergreen shrubs.
Fernbush thrives in tough conditions
Fernbush grows in semi-arid canyonlands across the Great Basin, particularly in Utah and Nevada. Its native habitat is an austere setting where plants have learned to thrive with lean soils, erratic rainfall, wide temperature swings and low humidity. These plants are tough. They aren ’t your fussy, faint-of-heart shrubs that need a lot of pampering.
That toughness carries over to the home landscape.
Fernbush is happy with neglect. It can thrive in tough spots: hot, sunny, and dry locations with lean soils. Fernbush grows naturally in rocky soils, but it will grow in clay soil and raised beds as long as the ground doesn’t get waterlogged or contain a lot of organic matter.
“If you plant fernbush in veggie garden soil, you could kill it because it doesn’t want that richness,” explains Panayoti Kelaidis, senior curator and director of outreach at Denver Botanic Gardens. “It wants it lean and mean. ”
Where to find fernbush
Fernbush went through Plant Select’s multi-year testing process and became a Plant Select plant in 2006. Today, it’s available at independent garden centers and online retailers across the intermountain West. You can learn more about fernbush here.
Fernbush Chamaebatiaria millefolium
Plant type: Native shrub
Size: 5’-6’
Blooms: Late July-August
Sun: Full sun-part sun
Irrigation: Very low (water consistently to establish)
Hardiness: USDA zones 4b-8
Soil type: Clay, loam, sandy or gravelly soil
Elevation: 7500 feet
