Eupatorium Summer Snow

The white florets are on display for five to six weeks, from early July through mid- to late August, and like the species, attracts a variety of pollinators. Both the stout stems and the bold foliage are a handsome dark green that remains free of powdery mildew. The foliage also emits a faint vanilla fragrance. The robust plants, with their attractive blooms and bold foliage, definitely make a statement in the landscape. Use in the back of the moist to mesic perennial border, as either an individual accent or grouped screening plants, along moist waterways and pond edges, and in any comparable landscape featuring native plants. Best grown in full sun to light shade in mesic to moist soils. Good air circulation helps prevent possible disease issues. Slight drought tolerance for short periods of time. Severely drought-stressed plants will prematurely go dormant. Plants will thrive with ample moisture; trial plants have even survived being flooded several times. Fairly easy care limited to an annual late fall removal of the spent stems. Stems can be pinched in late spring to encourage shorter, bushier plants, but the inflorescences will be delayed and smaller. ‘Summer Snow’ bloomed for five to six weeks from early July through mid- to late August under trials at the Chicago Botanic Garden (USDA Zone 5). Two comparable cultivars with white flowers trialed at the same site bloomed from late July to mid-September (Eutrochium maculatum ‘Ivory Tower’) and from mid-August to mid-September (Eupatorium maculatum ‘Snowball’).

‘Summer Snow’ was developed from wild material collected in 2009 from a family farm in northern Boone County, Illinois, near the Wisconsin-Illinois border. The owner of the farm reported white-flowered plants among a natural population of Eutrochium maculatum growing in a fen on his property. Six plants with white flowers were observed on August 16, 2009, among a population of several hundred plants with the typical lilac-pink f lowers of the species. Divisions were dug from three of the white-flowered plants on that date and then were grown at the Chicago Botanic Garden The shortest plant in the accession was self-pollinated under controlled conditions in 2011. The new variety was selected out of these plants for being conspicuously more compact and with cleaner foliage.