Summersweet... for your nose, a treat

"Walking down the garden path on a sultry afternoon in late July, I met a fragrance that took some time to trace. It was the mountain summersweet, Clethra acuminata, a delicate, elusive perfume that comes and goes with the breeze."

Elizabeth Lawrence

the Charlotte Observer

November 30, 1969

The summersweet to which Miss Lawrence refers is still in her garden, just beginning to reveal its first delicate fragrant blooms.  I experienced the same wonder on a hot July afternoon as I walked down her garden path two years ago.  The fragrance of the mountain summersweet is said to smell like heliotrope, but I agree with Miss Lawrence - it is more like vanilla.  It's a scent I never tire of noticing.

Come delight in the fragrance - and many blooms - of July in the Elizabeth Lawrence Garden!  As always, I am...

Yours in Dirt,

Andrea