A delightful native shrub for early summer is Lewis’s mock orange, Philadelphus lewisii. This deciduous shrub has a fountain like shape and fragrant white flowers that grow in clusters.
It is equally at home in a cultivated landscape or a natural thicket. My introduction to this native came in a conservation bundle thirty years ago. When the shrubs matured and started to flower, I wondered if a mistake had been made. The flowers looked so much like the Philadelphus coronarius, a European introduction commonly seen on old farms in New England. Our native west coast mock orange is just as beautiful and better adapted!
This multi-stemmed shrub with long arching branches may grow 3-10 ft tall or more. I planted one by a shed where the rain spills off the roof and after thirty years, it is close to 15 ft tall. Since it was part of a native plant thicket planted along the roadside, I never pruned it.
Lewis’ mock orange is equally effective as an ornamental as it is in restoration plantings. It can be used in borders or grouped together for screens. In autumn the foliage turns lemon yellow.
Growing Conditions
Lewis’s Mock Orange is flexible about soil requirements. It prefers soil rich in organic matter but will grow in gravelly soil if provided moisture. Full sun will encourage more blossoms but the plant will be healthy in partial sun. This native will be drought tolerant once established.
Native Habitat
Mock orange can be found throughout the west from British Columbia to California. I am sad to say I have never seen it growing on the Olympic Peninsula but, in Nelsa Buckingham’s book Flora of the Olympic Peninsula, she says it occurs in open habitat here on the peninsula lowlands from north to east. also at mid-elevations from northeast to east.
Benefits
Pollinators love this nectar-rich plant. Birds that eat the seeds in autumn include junco, chickadee, thrush, flicker and finch.
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