Hydrangea serrata 'Woodlander' is a Woodlanders introduction with a story, a compact, small-leaved mountain hydrangea grown from seed collected at the Chollipo Arboretum in Korea and selected here for real garden charm. Daintier than the big bigleaf hydrangeas, this is a refined shrub of two to four feet, carrying flat lacecap flower heads of clear blue in acid soil, ringed with showy sterile florets around a center of tiny fertile ones. The serrated leaves take on a handsome purplish cast that deepens toward autumn.
Few native bulbs command a wet margin the way Hymenocallis liriosme does. From a basal fountain of arching, strap-shaped, glossy green leaves rise leafless scapes, each crowned with several large white flowers whose narrow segments splay outward like pale spider legs around a central membranous cup. The fragrance arrives at dusk, sweet and carrying, a signal to the night-flying moths that pollinate the blooms in late spring and early summer.
Hypericum densiflorum earns the name densiflorum, densely flowered, in high summer, when the twiggy shrub disappears under rounded clusters of small golden flowers, each one a starburst of fine stamens above five clean yellow petals. Bees work the blooms from July into September, and as the show fades the narrow dark green leaves turn a warm yellow, giving way in winter to reddish, lightly peeling bark on the older stems.
Hypericum edisonianum is a Florida endemic with an upright, colony-forming habit, sending up reddish-brown stems clothed in small, leathery, gray-green leaves and topped in the warm months with four-petaled yellow flowers, each brushed with a dense tuft of stamens. As the stems age the bark peels away in thin strips, a subtle textural detail on a shrub that spreads by clonal growth into a low thicket.
Hypericum frondosum 'Sunburst' is the garden-refined face of a tough native shrub, a compact, rounded selection that mounds to about three feet and fills each summer with powderpuff golden flowers, the largest in the species at nearly two inches across, each a dense brush of stamens over broad yellow petals. The leaves are a cool blue-green, and as the season turns the older stems reveal red-brown, exfoliating bark, so the shrub keeps a quiet interest well past bloom.
Hypericum kalmianum is the tidy, cold-hardy member of the clan, a compact rounded shrub barely knee-high, densely branched, with narrow bluish-green leaves set in pairs along curiously four-angled stems. From July into September the plant disappears under bright golden flowers, each a shallow cup filled with a full boss of stamens, the bloom arriving in the heat of summer when the color is most welcome.
Hypericum lissophloeus is the tree among the St. John's Worts, a graceful evergreen that climbs to ten feet or more on slender trunks dressed in smooth, copper-colored bark that peels in thin sheets. The leaves are needle-fine and deep green, so that from a distance the plant reads almost like a small conifer until summer, when small bright yellow flowers scatter along the stems and settle the question of family.
Hypericum lloydii is one of the fine-textured St. John's Worts, a low, wiry evergreen shrub clothed in needle-like leaves so slender that the plant carries a heathery, almost coniferous look. Through the summer the stems light up with showy yellow flowers, each a shallow cup packed with stamens, held above foliage that stays green through the year.
Hypericum myrtifolium is the tidy, blue-leaved member of the group, an evergreen shrub whose small, leathery leaves clasp the stems in neat overlapping ranks and carry a soft glaucous, blue-green cast. In summer the bushy little frame fills with bright yellow flowers, each one a shallow cup brimming with stamens, the show carried on a plant that looks more like a miniature tree than a scrambling subshrub.
Hypericum prolificum lives up to the name, prolific, disappearing each summer under a heavy crop of bright yellow flowers, each three-quarters of an inch to an inch across and stuffed with a golden brush of stamens. The shrub is dense and rounded, with arching branches, narrow shiny leaves, and reddish, exfoliating bark that peels to show paler layers once the foliage thins.
Hypericum stans is the four-petaled member of the family, a small, upright shrub to about three feet with broad, clasping, blue-green leaves and shreddy, peeling bark. Through summer the stems carry bright yellow flowers an inch across, and where most St. John's Worts open five petals, these show four, set in a neat cross above a pair of large leafy sepals.
Woodlanders has long led the way in offering cold-hardy citrus, the kinds that carry fruit well beyond the usual citrus belt, and Ichang Lemon is a favorite of the group. The plant grows as a medium, evergreen small tree with large leaves on winged petioles and thorny branches, opens the fragrant white flowers typical of citrus in spring, and follows with very large, lemon-yellow, fragrant fruit.
Ilex amelanchier is one of the surprises of the genus, a holly that drops the leaves in fall and carries none of the usual prickles. This rare native grows as a tall deciduous shrub or small tree, and the female plants, this one among them, hang dull, matte red berries on unusually long stems, a soft-toned, almost muted display quite unlike the glossy scarlet of a Christmas holly.
Ilex cassine, the dahoon holly, is an elegant evergreen native of the southern wetlands, and this is a fruiting female, the sex that carries the crop of small, glossy red berries. Unlike the fiercely spined American holly, dahoon holds narrow, smooth-edged, bright green leaves that are a pleasure to plant near a path, and in fall and winter the branches string themselves with scarlet fruit against that clean green. Grown as a large shrub or a small tree, dahoon is one of the most useful evergreen hollies for the South.
Ilex cassine, the Dahoon Holly, is one of the most useful evergreen hollies of the South, an upright shrub or small tree with bright green, oval, nearly spineless leaves. Female plants carry heavy crops of small, bright red berries, but this is a male selection, grown not for fruit but as the pollen partner that lets nearby female Dahoons set that red winter display.
Ilex coriacea, the large gallberry, is a tall evergreen holly of the Southern wetlands, close kin to the familiar inkberry but built on a bigger scale, with broader, leathery, dark green leaves and larger fruit. On female plants the berries ripen to a shining black, a quiet contrast to the glossy foliage through fall and winter.
Ilex cornuta 'D'Or' is the golden-fruited version of a garden classic, a glossy evergreen Chinese holly hung through fall and winter with large, clear yellow berries in place of the usual red. The dark green, leathery leaves are nearly spineless, most carrying just a single spine at the tip, so the effect is polished rather than fierce, the bright fruit standing out cleanly against the deep foliage.
Ilex 'Edward J. Stevens' is the male companion to one of the most popular hollies in American gardens, and a robust evergreen quite apart from that role. The plant builds a dense, broadly pyramidal shrub or small tree, to fifteen feet and more, clothed in lustrous dark green leaves with only light spining. In spring the small white flowers open thick with pollen, and that pollen is the whole point.
Ilex glabra 'Nigra' is the inkberry chosen for good looks in every season, a compact, rounded evergreen holly with unusually rich, dark green leaves. Where the wild inkberry can bronze and dull through a hard winter, this selection was picked to hold a deeper, cleaner green, and the smooth, spineless foliage stays handsome on a tidy frame that runs lower and denser than the run of the species.
Ilex glabra, the inkberry or gallberry, is one of the finest native broadleaf evergreens of eastern North America, rooted in the sandy, acid soils of the coastal plain from Nova Scotia and New Jersey south through Florida and across the Gulf states. In wet pinelands, pocosins, and boggy edges this holly has long been a defining presence, and wherever the ground runs lean, sandy, and moist, inkberry settles in.
