The Node

Woodlanders' resource center for plant education, how-tos, garden inspiration, and news.

Region

Southeast

55 articles

The Shrimp Plant, Closely Read: Everything You Are Looking At Is a Leaf

Plant Highlight · Justicia brandegeeana · Mexico to the Gulf South. The shrimp plant is one of the most recognizable shrubs in the warm South, and almost nobody who grows...

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The Quiet Bells of Styrax: A Field Guide to the Snowbells

Field Guide · A field guide to Styrax, the snowbell genus: native Southeastern species and their fragrant East Asian cousins, and how to site a flower that hangs face down.

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Mexican Flame Vine (Senecio confusus): How to Grow and Overwinter at the Cold Edge

How-To & Propagation · Mexican Flame Vine · The Southeast. A tropical vine that blazes orange from June until frost, grown at the cold edge of the map, and how...

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Ilex verticillata: The Holly That Stands Bare in December

How-To · Holly Pollination · Southeast. Every winter someone writes to us about a holly that flowers faithfully and fruits never, and the answer is almost always the same, and...

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Myrcianthes fragrans: The Shrub That Comes in Twos

Plant Highlight · Myrcianthes fragrans · Florida and the Caribbean. Twin berries on a forked stalk, two common names that disagree about the plant entirely, and a nutmeg scent hiding...

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Gardening in Sand: Plants That Want the Soil You Apologize For

How-To · Sandy Soil · The Southeast. How sand behaves, the one planting habit that kills more sandhill natives than drought, and a simple plan for turning the hottest, driest...

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Cumberland Rosemary, and Why We Only Sell One in South Carolina

Plant Highlight · Conradina verticillata · The Cumberland Plateau. A rosemary-scented shrub from Tennessee river bars, federally threatened since 1991, grown in Aiken and bound by law to stay in...

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The Rosemary That Isn't

Essay · The scrub mints · Aiken, South Carolina. On the calamints and false rosemaries: small, stubborn, wonderfully scented shrubs that grow where almost nothing else will, spent two centuries...

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Mint on White Sand: A Field Guide to the Scrub Mints

Field Guide · The Scrub Mints · The Southeast. Every calamint, false rosemary, wild pennyroyal and scrub balm we grow or have grown, the listed species we can only sell...

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Pawpaw (Asimina triloba): The Tropics Came North Once and Left This Behind

Plant Highlight · Asimina triloba · Southeast. For about three weeks in September the woods of the eastern United States produce a custard, and almost nobody notices, because the fruit...

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Hibiscus mutabilis: White by Morning, Red by Dark

Plant Highlight · Hibiscus mutabilis · China and the American South. The cotton rose spends a single day working through three colors, white at dawn, pink by noon, red by...

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The Cedar That Is Not a Cedar

Field Guide, Cryptomeria, Japan and the American South. Japanese cedar has been holding up shrine roofs, sake barrels and Southern property lines for a very long time, all under a...

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