Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, sweetscented bedstraw is consistently rated fire resistant; Arizona’s listing assumes irrigation and maintenance.
Oregon State University, Washington State University, and University of Idaho Extension jointly list Galium odoratum as fire resistant. Oregon State’s extension service also recommends it in separate guidance for the Willamette Valley and in a Pacific Northwest groundcover gallery. Washington’s Department of Natural Resources and the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension likewise place it among fire-resistant plants.
Idaho Firewise adds a field-trial result rather than another simple listing: sweetscented bedstraw scores 8 of 10. On that source’s scale, scores from 8 through 10 fall within its recommendation range. The agreement therefore spans expert-curated guidance, a compiled state list, and a field-trial database rather than depending on one publication or one method.
The Arizona guidance supplies a useful limit to its own recommendation. It says plants in its fire-resistant list tend to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained, and it expressly warns that they are not fireproof. Sweetscented bedstraw is a groundcover in the Rubiaceae family, and the joint extension guidance assigns it USDA zones 4a through 10b. Across the regions assessed, the sources support treating it as a fire-resistant groundcover while preserving Arizona’s stated care conditions.
Form
groundcover
Rated in
Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; OR/WA/ID; Oregon (Willamette Valley); Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho) +3
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08
The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.
Maryland Forest Service says the list contains plants that can be grown in Maryland and identifies Maryland natives. FireApproved publishes 169 exact source owners from the 180 printed rows; an unrepresentable form and duplicate-owner rows are not broadened. The list calls itself non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every Maryland site.
NJ; partial normalized coverage
New Jersey DEP publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in New Jersey and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every New Jersey site or override the Pinelands Commission's separate placement and fuel-break rules.
WV; partial normalized coverage · 2026-08-26
West Virginia Division of Forestry publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in West Virginia and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and provides no comparative or site-specific rating.
Willamette Valley (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-02-01
OSU Extension says EM 9103 highlights fire-resistant plants that thrive under Willamette Valley growing conditions. FireApproved publishes 172 exact owners only as valley context. The guide shares the PNW 590 lineage and is not a second independent vote or statewide site clearance.
The October 2023 joint Pacific Northwest Extension publication explicitly names Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and publishes more than 150 plant profiles. FireApproved has normalized 155 exact plant records from the source; publication scope does not assert that every listed plant suits every site within the three states.
Eastern Washington (WA footprint); partial normalized coverage
Washington DNR publishes the guide for Eastern Washington and says it compiles plants from other Firewise documents that are likely to thrive there. FireApproved publishes 46 exact owners only as eastern Washington context. The rows are corroborative, not empirical or statewide.
Yavapai County (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2025-03-14
University of Arizona Cooperative Extension authors Bulletin 34 for Yavapai County. FireApproved publishes 198 exact source owners from its resistant and prone tables and keeps the county boundary visible. County publication scope is regional Arizona context, never statewide scope.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in CO, DE, GA, ID, MA, MD, MI, MN, NC, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, VA, WA.
Native range
Introduced / established
6 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
2 applicable cited hardiness statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each complete source row.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
4–10 explicit range · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Galium odoratum · exact match.
Source location: Sweet woodruff profile, USDA hardiness zones field.
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 30' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (with its recommendation)
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Sweet Woodruff profile (PDF page 96) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
Listed as Sweet Woodruff — Galium odoratum. The bulletin says fire-resistant plants tend to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained, while fire-prone plants may ignite readily and burn intensely.
Listed as Galium odoratium (Sweet Woodruff). The source says listed species exhibit stronger resistance to ignition by wildfires. Source comments: Very shade tolerant. Attractive, delicate white flowers
