It appears that our pieris plant may actually be a native! I had just assumed that it was the Japanese variety and hadn’t even really registered that there is a regional alternative. The other day when we were sitting on the porch I noticed that it was covered in bees of all sorts. So we looked it up again and identified it as a “Forest Flame” pieris, which is (as far as I can tell) a hybrid cultivar.

Over the past few years I’ve been vigilant about cutting out any damaged sprigs and the new growth is starting to fill out the shape of the plant. Once we removed the struggling evergreen on the north side of the pieris there was more room to grow in that direction. With the addition of the oak leaf hydrangea, that shady section of acid-loving shrubs with white flowers is now complete!