Sweet Fern

Comptonia peregrina

Sweet fern isn't a fern at all. it's a low woody shrub with fern-like deeply lobed leaves that release a rich, spicy-sweet fragrance when you brush against them. It's the smell of a sunny hillside in the mid-Atlantic, the kind of scent that's impossible to describe without saying 'crush a leaf and smell it.' Keep a pot near the entry and every visitor will stop and ask what it is. It's native to dry, sandy, acidic soils. roadsides, rocky slopes, and disturbed areas. which means it fixes nitrogen and builds soil where almost nothing else establishes. It spreads steadily by rhizomes to form a dense, weed-suppressing groundcover that rarely needs attention once established.