The Node
Woodlanders' resource center for plant education, how-tos, garden inspiration, and news.
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The Holly That Forgot the Spines: How to Grow Inkberry (Ilex glabra)
How-To · Ilex glabra · Southeast. How to plant, pollinate, prune and renew inkberry, the native evergreen holly that is easier than boxwood and far better company.
The Gold That Comes Before the Thaw: Carolina Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens)
Plant Highlight · Gelsemium sempervirens · Southeast. Carolina jessamine is South Carolina's state flower, a scented evergreen vine, and a plant that deserves both admiration and a careful hand.
Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina): Antlers in Velvet at the Southern Edge
Plant Highlights · Staghorn Sumac · Southeast. A northern native at the southern edge of the range: velvet antler branches in winter, scarlet leaves in October, and red cones that...
How to Grow Arkansas Bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii): Planting, Cutting Back and Fall Gold
How-To · Arkansas Bluestar · Southeast. A creek-bank perennial from the Ouachita Mountains that wants lean soil and full sun: how to plant threadleaf bluestar this fall, when to cut,...
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.
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...
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