The Node
Woodlanders' resource center for plant education, how-tos, garden inspiration, and news.
Theme
Native
46 articles
Related topics
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...
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...
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...
Four Days in the Cove: A Field Dispatch from the Cullowhee Native Plant Conference
Field Notes · Cullowhee Native Plant Conference · Western North Carolina. Jonas and Megan drive north for four days of rhododendron on the rock, endemics on the serpentine barren, and...
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...
The newsletter
Letters from the nursery
A quiet note when a new field guide goes up or a rare plant comes ready. No noise, no hard sell, just what is growing and worth knowing.
From reading to growing
The plants behind the stories
Most of what we write about, we also grow. When a guide leaves you wanting the plant in your own ground, the nursery is a click away.
Browse the Plants