The Node
Woodlanders' resource center for plant education, how-tos, garden inspiration, and news.
Region
Southeast
43 articles
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The Sage That Saves the Best for Last
Plant Highlight: Salvia leucantha. When the summer border has said everything, Mexican bush sage finally speaks, in a low velvet purple that bees and hummingbirds wait all season to hear.
The Weight of a Wisteria
Landscape Design, Wisteria, the Southeast. Every April the South goes lavender along the roadsides, and every April somebody decides to plant that. A guide to siting the vine, and choosing...
Sited by the Nose: A Southern Garden Written in Scent
Essay · The Fragrant Garden · The Southeast. On scent and memory in the Southern garden, and where to plant the tea olive, the sweetshrub, and the jasmine so the...
The Viburnums: A Field Guide to the Genus That Fuels the Flight
Field Guide, Viburnum, the Southeast. Forty-eight kinds grow in our fields and almost nobody plants them on purpose: a guide to the shrub whose fruit runs on fat, and whose...
The Quiet Harvest: Saving Seed as the Season Turns
How-To: Saving Native Seed. Late summer is the nursery's second harvest; here is how to gather, clean, and keep native seed so the plants you love sow true next spring.
Physic in the Hedgerow: Southeastern Native Plants and Their Medicinal Past
Education · Medicinal Natives · The Southeast. Four in-stock native plants with a genuine, documented healing history, and an honest word about the ones that only look the part.
Plant It in the Cooling: A Fall Planting Guide for the Southeast
Landscape Design · Fall Planting · The Southeast. In the Southern garden, autumn is the true beginning: a layer-by-layer guide to the in-stock natives worth planting this fall, from canopy...
The Blueberry That Grew Into a Tree
Plant Highlight · Sparkleberry · The Southeast. Vaccinium arboreum took the blueberry blueprint, added a trunk, cinnamon bark, and a taste for dry limestone, and became a small ornamental tree.
Where the Black Gum Wants to Stand
Landscape Design · Black Gum · The Southeast. The tupelo thrives in standing water and dry clay alike, which makes siting the tree a matter of listening to the ground...
The Apothecary That Stands
Essay on the living apothecary. How people found medicine in bark, root, and resin long before we could isolate a compound, and why the woods, not the herb bed, are...
Ferns of the Oak Woods
A field guide to the wood ferns (Dryopteris): the evergreen backbone of Southern shade, how to identify them, the tangled native hybrid family tree, and seven to grow.
Yellowroot (Xanthorhiza simplicissima): The Buttercup That Went to Wood
Plant Highlight · Xanthorhiza simplicissima · Southeastern Streambanks. The only woody member of the buttercup family: a quiet shade groundcover with a chrome-yellow root, a berberine dye, and a deep...
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