21 Native Shrubs In Virginia (Photos & Care Tips)
If you do not have enough outdoor space to accommodate large trees, but want a few green friends that can reach several feet high, then shrubs are your best friends.
Virginia is a state with an abundance of natural beauty, which is reflected in the wide variety of native shrubs that thrive in its different landscapes. From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the fertile coastal plains, these shrubs play an important role in maintaining the local ecosystem and providing ornamental values.
This article explores 21 of the most commonly seen native shrubs in Virginia that can grow in a variety of different conditions.
Let’s get started.
1. American Beautyberry
- Scientific Name: Callicarpa americana
- Common Name: American Beautyberry
- Mature Height: 3-6 ft
- Flowers: Pink-Purple
- Blooming Season: June – August
The American Beautyberry is a low-maintenance understory deciduous shrub that can grow up to 6 feet tall and has a graceful arching shape.
From June to August, it has small pink-purple flowers that grow in clusters at the base of its leaves. From September to March, it has clusters of magenta-purple berries that stay on the branches even when the leaves fall off in the winter.
It needs light from the full sun to part shade and moist, rich, sandy, clay, acidic soil. It can handle both cold and heat. The name of the genus comes from Greek and means “beautiful fruit.”
This is because berries are edible and are an important food source for many birds. Also, this plant is useful on the edges of landscapes or as a screen in wetter areas like wooded areas or under shade trees in gardens.
2. Smooth Alder
- Scientific Name: Alnus serrulata
- Common Name: Smooth or Hazel Alder
- Mature Height: 10-20 ft.
- Flowers: Purple Catkins
- Blooming Season: March-April
Alnus serrulata also called Smooth Alder or Hazel Alder is a small deciduous tree or shrub that can grow up to 20 feet tall.
It can be used to stabilize streambanks because its stems are flexible and its roots are fibrous. In the fall, its leaves turn yellow with reddish tints, and in March and April, male catkins hang down from the tree, while female catkins stand up. From August until February, the fruit looks like a small, woody cone.
This plant grows best in full sun or partial shade on wet soils like fine sandy loams, and clay soils, and flood-tolerant areas near wet areas like stream banks and pond edges. To get the best seed production, plant this species 5–10 feet apart so that the crown can grow properly.
Birds feed on the seeds produced by this plant making it an ideal choice for wildlife habitat improvement projects.
3. High-tide Bush
- Scientific Name: Baccharis halimifolia
- Common Name: High-Tide Bush, Groundsel Tree
- Mature Height: 6-12 ft.
- Flowers: White to Green
- Blooming Season: August – September
The High-tide Bush or Groundsel Tree, known as Baccharis halimifolia, is a deciduous shrub that can grow up to 12 feet tall with grayish-green oval leaves and many branches from short trunks covered densely with branchlets.
From August to September, small clusters of white to green flowers appear at the tips, trailed by silvery plume-like achenes in fall on female plants.
This plant enjoys sunny spots but can also tolerate part shade and moist soils such as sandy loam or saltwater inundation which makes it ideal for planting close to ocean sides.
This plant was named after the Greek god Bacchus because of its fragrant roots which offer shelter to marsh wrens and other birds who nest in its openly branched stems while drawing in pollinators with their flowers.
4. Red Chokeberry
- Scientific Name: Aronia arbutifolia
- Common Name: Red Chokeberry
- Mature Height: 6-10 ft.
- Flowers: White to Light Pink
- Blooming Season: April
Aronia arbutifolia generally referred to as the Red Chokeberry, is a deciduous multi-stemmed shrub that grows in a vase shape and reaches heights of 6 to 10 feet.
It blooms with numerous clusters of small white or light pink flowers in April which are followed by vibrant red berries that last into December.
This plant does best in averagely moist, well-drained soil, but it can also grow in clay soil. For best growth, it should be planted in sunny to partly shaded areas.
The natural habitat for this species ranges from wet thickets to dry ones making it ideal for naturalized areas where it can spread through suckering.
The leaves turn an intense raspberry/crimson hue with purplish highlights while shady sites may have some orange mixed in as well! Also, its nectar serves as a food source for pollinators while birds sometimes eat its berries all through winter months.
5. New Jersey Tea
- Scientific Name: Ceanothus americanus
- Common Name: New Jersey Tea
- Mature Height: 3-4 ft.
- Flowers: White
- Blooming Season: May-June
The New Jersey Tea, or Ceanothus americanus, is a shrub that grows to be about 3 to 4 feet tall. In full sun or partial shade, it blooms with white flowers from May to June.
This plant does best in average soil that drains well, but it can survive in dry conditions and on shallow rocky slopes or banks.
Native to North America, it has fragrant flowers that draw hummingbirds and butterflies. In some cultures, flowers are also used as medicine.
6. Buttonbush
- Scientific Name: Cephalanthus occidentalis
- Common Name: Button Willow
- Mature Height: 5-12 ft.
- Flowers: White/Pale Pink
- Blooming Season: June – September
Cephalanthus occidentalis usually referred to as Buttonbush or Button Willow, is an evergreen shrub or small tree that can grow to heights of 6 to 12 feet.
From June to September, it produces balls of long-lasting white or light-pink flowers that look like pincushions and button-like balls of fruit which are rounded masses of nutlets and remain through the winter.
This plant does best in full sun to partial shade and can handle wet, sandy, and clay soils as well as inadequate drainage and standing water. Its natural habitat is close to shorelines, swamps, and other areas with water.
The nectar attracts bees and butterflies, while waterbirds like ducks and other shorebirds eat the seeds.
7. American Hazelnut
- Scientific Name: Corylus americana
- Common Name: American Hazelnut
- Mature Height: 10-16 ft.
- Flowers: Brown (male), Red (female)
- Blooming Season: March-April
The American Hazelnut, or Corylus americana, is a shrub that can grow up to 16 feet tall and lose its leaves in the fall. It has brown male flowers in March and April and red female flowers at the same time. Its leaves change colors in the fall.
This plant does best in full sun, but it can also grow in some shade if it is planted in average soils like medium loam or sandy soils, which can also handle a small amount of clay.
The hazelnut grows naturally in moist thickets and along the edges of woods near valleys and prairies. This makes it a great choice for many gardens in North America, where it has been growing naturally for thousands of years because birds and squirrels love its tasty nuts.
8. Silky Dogwood
- Scientific Name: Cornus amomum
- Common Name: Silky Dogwood
- Mature Height: 6-12 ft.
- Flowers: Yellowish White
- Blooming Season: May-June
Cornus amomum, also called Silky Dogwood, is an evergreen shrub that can grow up to 12 feet tall. In May and June, it has yellowish-white flowers, and in August, it has blue drupes that birds like to eat.
This plant does best in full sun or a mix of shade and sun, but it can also grow in almost full shade.
For best growth, the soil should be average, with a moisture level between medium and wet and good drainage. It lives in wet lowland areas like the edges of swamps, floodplains, shrub-covered wetlands, and along streams and ponds.
Native Americans used this shrub’s bark to make tobacco because it had a lot of nicotine in it.
9. Coastal White-Alder
- Scientific Name: Clethra alnifolia
- Common Name: Pepperbush
- Mature Height: 3-8 ft.
- Flowers: Fragrant white flowers
- Blooming Season: July – August
Clethra alnifolia, sometimes known as pepper bush, is a hardy and adaptable shrub that requires little in the way of maintenance. Beautiful white blooms grow from July through August, luring pollinators like butterflies and bees.
The deciduous shrub can to heights of 8 feet and forms rounded colonies. Its dried fruiting capsules persist long after flowering, making the plant easy to identify in the dead of winter thanks to the yellowish-golden hue of its autumn leaves.
This plant does best in full sun but will adapt to partial shade; it does well in medium-to-heavily moist soils as well as clayey ones; and it can handle salt spray, making it a good candidate for coastal settings.
Clethra Alnifolia prefers sandy soils and can be found in these areas near swampy forests, wet marshes, stream banks, and seashores.
If you don’t want your pepper bush to get too big, remove any root suckers as soon as you see them. Otherwise, you’ll have to resort to cuttings for further growth.
10. Strawberry-bush
- Scientific Name: Euonymus americanus
- Common Name: Heart’s-a-bustin’
- Mature Height: 6 – 10 ft.
- Flowers: Small white flowers
- Blooming Season: July – August
Strawberry-bush, also known as Heart’s-a-bustin’, is a species of Euonymus americanus, a shrub that is adaptable and requires little in the way of maintenance.
It reaches a height of 6-10 feet and has green, slender stems that turn brown in the winter.
It produces delicate white flowers in the summer months of July and August and then transforms into colorful seed pods. Its natural habitat is in wooded areas and thickets, where it thrives in the sun and on acidic, well-drained soil.
Even in the dead of winter, you can find this plant by its fruiting capsules, which stay on the plant for months after it blooms and changes from dull yellow to orange.
11. Black Huckleberry
- Scientific Name: Gaylussacia baccata
- Common Name: Black Huckleberry
- Mature Height: 1-3 ft.
- Flowers: White & Pink Tubular Flowers in Panicles
- Blooming Season: May-July
Gaylussacia baccata, also called the Black Huckleberry, is a colonial shrub with many thorny branches.
It has tiny, oval leaves that change color from green to orange and red in the fall. In May through July, panicles of white and pink tubular flowers bloom on the old growth and are followed by clusters of purple-black delicious berries.
This plant does well in partial shade to full sun, and in acidic soil that is either sandy or clay. Its natural habitat includes a wide range of forests, woodland, outcrops, clearings, and even seasonal saturated swampy forests in depressions and flatwoods areas.
Small animals and birds benefit from this plant since they can consume the seeds and take refuge in its branches.
12. Fetterbush
- Scientific Name: Eubotrys racemosus
- Common Name: Swamp Dog-hobble
- Mature Height: 3-6 ft.
- Flowers: White, Urn Shaped
- Blooming Season: March-May
Evergreen Eubotrys racemosus, also known as Fetterbush or Swamp Dog-hobble, may spread its roots far and wide and eventually reach a height of 3 to 6 feet, with stems that gracefully arch and come in a variety of green and red hues. It has sharp, serrated leaves.
The plant blooms with tiny, casket white flowers in the spring, from March to May, on racemes that are only a couple of inches long.
It likes to grow in low pH, moist, acidic soil near alluvial swamps, wet flatwoods, bogs, seepage swamps, depression ponds, or other wetland areas. It can grow in either partial or full sun. vibrant purple fall foliage, but it has to be shielded from harsh winter winds.
The fetterbush can be used along taller plant borders or in shady bank stabilization projects.
13. Wild Hydrangea
- Scientific Name: Hydrangea arborescens
- Common Name: Wild Hydrangea
- Mature Height: 3-8 ft.
- Flowers: White
- Blooming Season: May-June
Wild hydrangea, or Hydrangea arborescens, is a tall, mounding deciduous shrub that can reach heights of 8 feet. It has long, thin branches and a dense, bushy appearance.
It blooms for a long time in May and June due to the little white flowers it bears in 4-inch drooping spires along its arching branches.
In autumn, the leaves turn brilliant shades of crimson and purple and stay on the shrub throughout the cold months. It thrives in full sun but may survive in partial shade; flowers are more numerous and the foliage is more colorful in the fall if it receives at least some daily sunlight.
This species thrives in acidic soils like those found near wooded stream banks or bogs, and it can even grow in areas with poor drainage, making it an excellent choice for large-scale planting projects. Further, the Darapsas versicolor moth uses this wild hydrangea as a host plant for its larvae (also called the hydrangea Sphinx).
14. Winterberry
- Scientific Name: Ilex verticillata
- Common Name: Winterberry
- Mature Height: 3-12 ft.
- Flowers: Greenish-white
- Blooming Season: May-June
The Winterberry, or Ilex verticillata, is a deciduous shrub that takes its time getting to its full height of 12 feet. It blooms greenish-white flowers in May and June, and the female plants then bear bright red berries that persist into the fall and winter.
It thrives in full sun to partial shade on average acidity soils that are slightly dry to slightly moist; clay soil is also acceptable. For its nectar, birds like butterflies are drawn to this plant’s natural habitats in swamps, wet thickets, and low forests near ponds and streams.
The bright red fruits of this plant stand out in the fall and winter because they are so bright. Common winterberry leaves are not toothed like those of other hollies, but like Illex glabra, they can only be male or female.
15. Witch Hazel
- Scientific Name: Hamamelis virginiana
- Common Name: Witch Hazel
- Mature Height: 10-15 ft. (sometimes up to 30 ft.)
- Flowers: Yellow, Fragrant
- Blooming Season: September-December
Witch Hazel, or Hamamelis virginiana, is a multi-stemmed shrub with enormous, gnarled branches that grow in a messy, open crown. Between 10 and 15 feet in height is possible for this plant (or sometimes even up to 30 feet).
The golden, fragrant blooms with crumpled petals emerge in the fall from September to December, long after the leaves have fallen. It has rich, consistent lettuce-green foliage that turns a dazzling gold in the fall.
Depending on its environment, this plant does best in full sun or deep shadow, and it thrives in either acidic or calcareous, moist, sandy-clay, or loamy soils.
The little brown capsules that this plant produces after it blooms are a favorite food of birds, therefore its native habitat is wet forests, thickets, or bottomlands. Even more, it has stunning fall colors, making it a valuable asset to any garden.
16. Inkberry
- Scientific Name: Ilex glabra
- Common Name: Inkberry, Gallberry
- Mature Height: 5-8 ft.
- Flowers Color: Greenish white
- Blooming Season: May to June
Ilex glabra, often known as inkberry or gallberry, is a 5–8-foot-tall, rounded mound of a colony-forming shrub. It has glossy, leathery, lance-shaped leaves that change from a dark green in the summer to a lighter green in the fall.
It blooms greenish-white flowers between May and June, which, if pollinated, produce pea-sized, black, berry-like drupes in early autumn that last through winter. In terms of light conditions, it does best in either partial shade or sun, and in acidic, sandy, wet soils.
Its natural habitats include sandy forests and the peripheries of wetland habitats.
The berries are a tasty treat for the birds, and the honey made from this plant is highly prized. Berries can only be produced if a male and female plant of the same species is in bloom at the same time.
17. Virginia Sweetspire
- Scientific Name: Itea virginica
- Common Name: Virginia Sweetspire
- Mature Height: 3-4 ft.
- Flowers: White
- Blooming Season: May-June
Itea virginica, often known as the Virginia Sweetspire, is a four-foot-tall deciduous shrub with slender branches and mound-shaped growth.
In the fall, its leaves turn red or purple and remain on the plant throughout the winter. It produces white flowers from May to June that attract birds, butterflies, and other nectar-eating insects.
This versatile shrub produces the greatest flowers when planted in an area that receives at least a portion of the day’s full sun; yet, it can also take partial shade.
It favors average soils but grows well in medium-to-wet soils, making it appropriate for wetlands and regions with poor drainage where other plants may not thrive.
This sturdy shrub has beautiful fall color that lasts until early winter, adding seasonal interest to your garden.
18. Mountain Laurel
- Scientific Name: Kalmia latifolia
- Common Name: Mountain Laurel
- Mature Height: 12-20 ft.
- Flowers: White to Pink with Deep Rose Spots
- Blooming Season: May-July
Kalmia latifolia, also known as Mountain Laurel, is an evergreen shrub that can grow up to 20 feet tall. It grows in thickets and can sometimes form small trees with crooked trunks and spreading branches.
From May to July, it produces bell-shaped flowers with deep rose spots that range in color from white to pink and are arranged in large flat clusters at the top of the plant. Its glossy leaves change color throughout the year, going from light green to dark green and then purple in the autumn.
This species prefers sun or partial shade exposure, as well as cool moist acidic soil, but does not thrive in clay soils near rivers or streams.
It is native to rocky slopes or sandy woods, where birds eat its fruit and bees are drawn to its spring-like mechanism stamens, which spread pollen when tripped.
For a bushier plant, prune lightly after blooming season; however, all parts of this plant are toxic if ingested, so use caution around children and pets.
19. Dwarf Azalea
- Scientific Name: Rhododendron atlanticum
- Common Name: Dwarf Azalea
- Mature Height: 1-3 ft.
- Flowers: White
- Blooming Season: April-May
Rhododendron atlanticum, also known as dwarf Azalea, is a lovely ornamental plant with white flowers in April and May.
Growing to a height of 1–3 feet, this plant thrives in partly shaded locations with dry, well-drained sandy soil. This native Virginia shrub originated in coastal savannas or moist flat pine forests.
All rhododendrons contain poisonous substances that can be harmful if ingested by humans or animals, so caution must be exercised when handling them. The fruit produced by this plant attracts birds.
20. Carolina Rose
- Scientific Name: Rosa carolina
- Common Name: Carolina Rose, Pasture Rose
- Mature Height: 3-6 ft.
- Flowers: Pink & Fragrant
- Blooming Season: May-June
The Carolina rose, or Rosa carolina is a freely suckering shrub that can grow up to 6 feet tall and has other common names such as Pasture rose.
In May and June, it produces pink flowers with five petals and a sweet fragrance from thorny stems. It bears hips as fruit, which mature from a deep green to a brilliant red.
This plant does best in average soils that are medium wet to well-drained and acidic. Once it is established, it can survive in dry conditions, but it does best in sunny spots and is one of the most shade-tolerant roses.
Glades, open woods, and prairies along roads and railroad tracks near streams, swamps, and low areas are typical habitats for this rose. Birds visit this rose for its nectar, and bumblebees use it as nesting material or build their nests directly beneath the plants.
21. Swamp Rose
- Scientific Name: Rosa palustris
- Common Name: Swamp Rose
- Mature Height: 3-6 ft.
- Flowers: Pink
- Blooming Season: June-July
The Swamp Rose (Rosa palustris) is an attractive ornamental plant that draws in both birds and honey bees.
It can reach heights of 3-6 feet and blooms a delicate pink color in June or July, depending on the variety. This rose does best in soil that is acidic and full of organic matter. It can even live in places that are always wet.
Swamps, marshes, ditches, and stream banks are all part of its natural habitat. Red hips the size of peas appear on the plant after flowering is complete, and the leaves will eventually turn red as the seasons change.
The Swamp Rose is a beautiful and useful plant that can survive flooding. This makes it a great choice for wet soils.
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Sources
The Regional Gardening team makes sure that the information in our articles is accurate by only using sources that are known to be trustworthy. Some of these sources are peer-reviewed journals from government agencies, well-known universities, and scientific research organizations.
- The Virginia Department of Forestry
- The Virginia Cooperative Extension
- Virginia Native Plant Society
- The US Forest Service
- Virginia Natural Heritage Program
- Virginia Tech Dendrology
