The Node
Woodlanders' resource center for plant education, how-tos, garden inspiration, and news.
Region
Southeast
52 articles
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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...
A Field Guide to the Sumacs (Rhus)
Field Guide · The Genus Rhus · Southeastern United States. A grower's guide to the sumacs Woodlanders keeps in cultivation, from staghorn and smooth sumac to the federally endangered Michaux's,...
The Trees That Carry the Largest Flowers in North America
Plant Highlight · Bigleaf & Ashe Magnolia · Aiken, SC. On the bigleaf magnolias, a pair of Southern natives that grow leaves the size of canoe paddles and blooms you...
Cuttings in the Heat: The Summer Craft of Making More From Less
From the Fields · Propagation · Aiken, SC. A dispatch from the summer potting bench on the craft of rooting semi-hardwood cuttings in July, with four plants we are propagating...
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