Oxydendrum arboreum (Sourwood (Native))

Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) is a small slow-growing flowering tree with three notable claims to fame: drooping fragrant white flower spires in mid to late summer (an unusual timing for any flowering tree), brilliant scarlet to crimson fall color among the best of any North American tree, and the source of legendary Appalachian sourwood honey.

This is an EASTERN North American native, not a Pacific Northwest native. In the wild it grows from the Appalachian Mountains south through the Ohio Valley and Southeast into Florida and Louisiana, as an understory tree of acid-soil mixed-mesophytic forests. We grow it here as an ornamental tree, not as a regional native.

Plants make a slim pyramidal to oval-rounded canopy 20 to 30 feet tall and 10 to 20 feet wide in landscape settings (taller and wider on prime sites in its native range). The bark develops a beautiful gray-brown deeply furrowed character with age. Leaves emerge bronze-pink, mature to glossy green, then fire to scarlet and crimson in fall. From July into August, ten-inch pendulous panicles of tiny urn-shaped white flowers hang from the branch tips, fragrant and constantly worked by honeybees, bumblebees, and native bees. The honey produced from sourwood flowers is among the most prized varietal honeys in the eastern US.

Site Sourwood in full sun to light part shade in acid moisture-retentive soil. It hates lime, and it hates drought. Best on the same kind of acid-organic well-drained site that suits Rhododendron, Vaccinium, and Pieris. USDA Zone 5 to 9.

Generally deer resistant. Not coastal-suitable; salt-intolerant and not adapted to maritime conditions. A specimen tree for an acid-soil garden, NOT a substitute for Pacific Northwest natives like Madrone or Cascara.

Pairs naturally with Kalmia latifolia, Rhododendron native species, Vaccinium, Hamamelis, and other acid-soil understory plants for an East Coast woodland palette transplanted to a PNW garden.