I don't usually do plant profiles, but I learned something new about one of my favorite native shade garden plants, Aralia racemosa a/k/a Spikenard. It will grow in full sun.
(I apologize for the quality of these two photos, which were taken in the middle of a sunny day.) I noticed this magnificent 5 foot specimen in the display garden at Midwest Groundcovers* (that's a 7 foot tall sunflower behind it),
where I was privileged to attend a special open day for garden writers. (Hopefully, more on that later.) Spikenard is a perennial masquerading as a shrub. Mine is fairly small because I'm depriving it of the moisture it craves.
It's about 3 1/2 feet tall and 6 feet wide. It has these funky flowers,
and then these flashy berries.
This plant is a member of the ginseng family and purportedly has spicy roots from which root beer was made (I've never tried). It is listed as Zones 3 to 9, and is found growing wild in eastern Canada down to every State east of the Mississippi except for Florida, most of the Plains States, Missouri and Mississippi. Clearly it's a fairly adaptable plant, has few pest or disease problems, and has yellow fall foliage. It's time this plant was better known.
*Our tour guide, Kevin, blogs about the display gardens here.