The Node
Woodlanders' resource center for plant education, how-tos, garden inspiration, and news.
Region
Southeast
52 articles
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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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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