Many of the finest ornamentals for the southern garden come from the deserts of the Southwest, and this Chihuahuan legume is a quietly handsome example. Acacia neovernicosa is an upright, spreading, thorny shrub clothed in twice-compound leaves so finely divided that the whole plant takes on a soft, smoky texture. The foliage carries a faint varnish, sticky to the touch, which gives the species both its botanical name and its common one, viscid acacia. In spring the branches are studded with small golden puffballs of bloom, abundant and sweetly fragrant, loud with bees on a warm morning.
Acanthus mollis is one of the great architectural plants of the garden, a clump-forming perennial whose large, glossy, deeply cut leaves are among the most recognizable of all foliage. They are, quite literally, the leaves of antiquity: their form was carved into the capitals of Corinthian columns by Greek and Roman builders, and the legend, told by Vitruvius, holds that the sculptor Callimachus took his inspiration from a clump of acanthus growing up around a basket left on a girl's grave. Few plants carry their history so plainly in their shape.
In the cool hush of shaded woods, Adiantum pedatum rises on slender, glossy black stems that hold the lacy green fronds in flattened semicircles, each a hand-turned fan or horseshoe of finely cut segments. Standing twelve to thirty inches tall, the northern maidenhair forms serene clumps that spread slowly on creeping rhizomes, never in a hurry. In early spring the fiddleheads emerge a rosy to burgundy hue and uncurl into the distinctive bird's-foot, palmately branched leaves that give the fern such grace.
In July, when most of the shade garden has settled into a holding pattern of foliage and waiting, Aesculus parviflora opens for business. The timing is the first surprise. The flowers are the second. Each panicle is a foot or more of tightly packed white tubular blooms with conspicuous pink-red anthers projecting beyond the petals, the whole spike held upright above the foliage like something assembled by a botanical committee that could not decide between elegant and extravagant and chose both. A mature colony in full bloom in midsummer is among the more spectacular events available to the shade gardener, and the hummingbirds and swallowtails arrive reliably.
A wide-spreading, suckering, multi-stemmed deciduous shrub of slow, deliberate growth, Aesculus parviflora var. serotina carries the same upright white bottlebrush flowers as the bottlebrush buckeye, but opens them two to three weeks later, well into the heat of summer. The overall shape is irregular and almost stratified, the branches layering horizontally, and the medium to dark green leaves turn a clear yellow in fall.
The red buckeye is the South's hummingbird herald, a clump-forming, round-topped deciduous shrub or small tree whose lustrous, palmately compound leaves break very early, often before the last frosts, and whose six-inch panicles of tubular scarlet-red flowers open in spring just as the ruby-throated hummingbirds return north. The bright bloom, unusual among the buckeyes, draws hummingbirds and bees in numbers and gives the plant a long place in the affection of native-plant gardeners across the southern United States.
The century plant is the great architectural agave, a broad rosette of thick, gray green, spine-tipped leaves that can spread six to eight feet across, each leaf edged with hooked teeth and ending in a hard dark spine. The form is bold and symmetrical, a piece of living sculpture for a hot, dry corner, and the silver cast of the foliage carries the planting through every season.
A small, bright green agave with a clean white stripe down the center of each short, broad, toothed leaf, Agave lophantha 'Splendida' is a compact, clumping selection of a species native to South Texas and Mexico. The variegated rosettes stay neat and low, a jewel-box agave for a trough, a container, or the front of a hot, sunny bed.
A graceful native onion, Allium cernuum, the nodding onion, lifts loose clusters of pink to lavender, bell-shaped flowers that bend over in a soft arc at the top of slender stems, swaying through mid and late summer above tufts of grassy, blue-green foliage. The nodding habit gives the plant a particular charm, and the flowers draw native bees, butterflies, and other pollinators in good numbers.
Hardiness
Zones 4–8
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
12–18 in.
Spread
6–8 in.
Bloom
Pink
Plant type
Perennial
Traditional use
respiratory support, digestive health, immune support
Sweet almond verbena is grown for one glorious thing above all: scent. From midsummer until hard frost, Aloysia virgata tips every branch with slender spikes of small white flowers that pour out an intoxicating vanilla-almond fragrance, strongest in the late afternoon and evening and carrying clear across a garden. Butterflies and hummingbirds work the spikes all season.
Threadleaf bluestar is grown for two seasons at once: a haze of soft, powder-blue stars in late spring, and a billow of fine, needle-thin foliage that turns a blazing clear gold in fall. Native to the Ouachita Mountains of central Arkansas, Amsonia hubrichtii forms a large, dense, shrub-like clump of upright stems clothed in those threadlike leaves, and the autumn color alone earns a place in any sunny border.
Dwarf bluestar is the compact, well-behaved member of the clan, a tidy mound of upright stems and soft green leaves topped in late spring with clusters of powder-blue, star-shaped flowers. Often treated as a low form of the eastern bluestar, Amsonia montana stays small and shapely, a fine choice where the taller bluestars would sprawl.
Eastern bluestar is the bluestar most gardeners know, a robust native perennial with broader, willowy oval leaves and the clear blue, star-shaped flowers that name the genus, carried in clusters at the stem tips in spring. Amsonia tabernaemontana grows happily in deep, moist soil in part shade, and rewards almost any reasonable site with bloom and easy good health.
Flame acanthus, better known as hummingbird bush, is a tough, airy deciduous shrub for hot, dry places, hung from late spring until frost with slender orange to red tubular flowers that ruby-throated hummingbirds cannot resist. Small, pointed leaves give a light, open texture, and the long bloom season makes Anisacanthus wrightii one of the best hummingbird plants for the southern garden.
A pumpkin-orange selection of the classic flame acanthus, Anisacanthus wrightii 'Pumpkin' trades the usual scarlet for warm, glowing orange, lighting the late-season garden with the same slender, tubular, hummingbird flowers. The clone was discovered at the San Antonio Botanic Garden and is generally taken to be the selection known as 'Pumpkin'.
Swamp milkweed brings beauty and biodiversity to the moist garden. Asclepias incarnata is a native perennial prized for domed clusters of rosy pink, vanilla-scented flowers and for a vital role in feeding pollinators, native to wet meadows, streambanks, and lowland prairies across much of North America. The plant takes happily to rain gardens, wet soils, and sunny borders alike, a natural for the ecologically minded gardener.
The white-flowered form of swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata 'Ice Ballet' carries the same upright, well-mannered habit as the species but trades rosy pink for clusters of pure, cool white, held atop sturdy three-to-four-foot stems through summer. The effect is fresh and luminous in a moist border, and just as useful to wildlife.
Butterfly weed is the orange star of the summer meadow, a strong-growing native perennial of eastern North America and a longtime favorite of gardeners. Flower color ranges from clear yellow to nearly red, but the typical Asclepias tuberosa blazes a vivid orange that butterflies, and the eye, find from across the garden.
Hardiness
Zones 4–9
Light
Full Sun
Height
12–24 in.
Spread
12–18 in.
Bloom
Orange
Plant type
Perennial
Traditional use
respiratory support, digestive health, pain relief, reproductive health
The cast iron plant earned the name honestly. Aspidistra elatior is the toughest of evergreen foliage plants, sending up broad, glossy, dark green blades straight from the soil and holding strong form year round in conditions that defeat almost everything else. A Victorian parlor favorite for surviving gaslight and neglect, the cast iron plant is just as valuable in the deep shade of the garden.
A boldly striped form of the cast iron plant, Aspidistra elatior 'Variegata' carries the same broad, leathery, evergreen blades, each brushed lengthwise with bands of creamy white over deep glossy green. The variegation lights up a shaded corner, and the toughness is all there too: this is a near-indestructible evergreen for difficult, low-light places.
