{"title":"Canopy Trees","description":"\u003cp\u003eCanopy trees are the tall, spreading trees that form the highest layer of a planting, the oaks, maples, and their many companions that rise above the shrubs and reach for open sky. Given room and time, they become the defining features of a landscape: the shade over a summer lawn, the structure against a winter sky, the framework the rest of the garden is arranged around.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the landscape nothing else does their work. A single well-placed canopy tree cools a house through summer, shelters the ground below for shade plantings, and gives a garden the vertical scale and permanence that no shrub or perennial can. Sited with their mature spread in mind, they frame views, line drives, and turn an open lot into a place with depth and shelter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe grow canopy trees because they are the single most valuable thing most people can plant. A mature native tree supports more wildlife than any other plant in the garden, hosting hundreds of species of caterpillars and the birds that eat them, sheltering nests, and offering mast and cover for decades. Add the shade, the stored carbon, and the sheer beauty, and no other planting gives back so much for so long.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant for the long game: give each tree the room a mature canopy demands, get the roots off to a strong first few years, and choose for the site rather than forcing the site to fit. Many are also \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/southeast-natives\"\u003eSoutheastern Natives\u003c\/a\u003e; for the evergreen framework alongside them see our \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/conifers\"\u003eConifers\u003c\/a\u003e, and for the layer beneath, our \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/large-shrubs\"\u003eLarge Shrubs\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"acer-rubrum-candy-ice","title":"Acer rubrum 'Candy Ice'","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAcer rubrum\u003c\/em\u003e 'Candy Ice' is a Woodlanders introduction, found in southwest Virginia by the late Norman Beal. We use Norman's original name, though the same tree has been circulated elsewhere as 'Snowfire'. This is an unusual variegated red maple, the leaves marbled in pink, white, and green, and the foliage burns early, among the first to color when fall arrives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePyramidal in youth, 'Candy Ice' broadens with age into an irregular, rounded crown on the vigorous frame of a native red maple, reaching forty to sixty feet in time. The variegation is the draw and also the caution: those pale leaves scorch in full sun, so this maple wants the relief of part shade, where the pink and cream stay clean and bright. Small red flowers open before the leaves in earliest spring, the familiar red-maple signal that winter is loosening, and ripen into reddish samaras, the keys of a tree long called soft maple.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe red maple, \u003cem\u003eAcer rubrum\u003c\/em\u003e, is one of the most widespread trees of eastern North America, and Native peoples knew the species well. The Cherokee, Iroquois, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi prepared a bark decoction as a wash for sore and inflamed eyes, while inner-bark teas were taken for coughs and stomach complaints, and the tannin-rich bark also yielded ink and, with iron added, a dark blue dye for cloth. 'Candy Ice' is grown for beauty rather than use, yet the variegated leaves carry that deep American lineage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite 'Candy Ice' in part shade as a specimen where the marbled foliage and early fall color can be enjoyed, keeping the leaves clear of harsh afternoon sun and drying wind. The tree thrives in moist to average, well-drained soil and tolerates the damp ground red maples often colonize. A conversation piece for the collector's garden, and a piece of southern plant history besides.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057805791347,"sku":"ACER-RUBR-CAND-ICE-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/AcerCandyIceWoodlanders-3.jpg?v=1750637541"},{"product_id":"acer-barbatum","title":"Acer barbatum","description":"\u003cp\u003eAcer barbatum is a medium to large deciduous tree of rounded, oval form, a southern cousin of the northern sugar maple and sometimes filed under Acer saccharum subsp. floridanum or Acer floridanum. The Florida maple is built for heat in a way the northern relative is not, smaller in every part, with leaves that are whitish beneath and a constitution suited to long, humid summers. In the wild these trees favor fertile, moist, well-drained, often calcareous ground, frequently along streams and in rich hammocks from Virginia south to the Florida panhandle and west into Texas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike all the sugar maples, their rising sap has long meant sweetness; the syrup industry of the North rests on close kin, and the southern trees can be tapped as well, though they yield more modestly. The fall color is a clean, unhurried yellow, sometimes warming toward orange, and the bark of older trunks takes on the handsome gray, longitudinally ribbed character of the northern sugar maple.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a garden tree the Florida maple earns a place as a durable, well-mannered shade maple for the South, at home as a lawn specimen, a street or park tree, or a canopy over a woodland planting. Give these trees room to round out, and underplant with shade-tolerant natives that appreciate the dappled light beneath. Native to the southeastern United States.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057805856883,"sku":"ACER-BARB-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-3.jpg?v=1720136130"},{"product_id":"acer-griseum","title":"Acer griseum","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew trees carry a collector's story as plainly as the paperbark maple. Ernest Henry Wilson gathered seed of \u003cem\u003eAcer griseum\u003c\/em\u003e in central China in 1901 for the Veitch nursery, and for most of the twentieth century nearly every paperbark grown in Western gardens traced back to that introduction and one that followed. The maple sets abundant winged samaras, yet most are empty, a parthenocarpic habit that leaves only a small fraction viable. That quirk is why the species has always been scarce, slow to propagate, and quietly treasured wherever a good specimen takes hold.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe bark is the glory of the tree. Within two or three years the trunk and larger limbs begin to shed in papery curls of cinnamon to coppery red brown, and the peeling layers cling rather than fall, catching low winter light until the whole canopy seems lit from within. Three-part leaves, blue green through summer, turn scarlet and orange before dropping, while the small greenish yellow spring flowers pass almost unnoticed, content to leave the bark and the autumn fire to carry the season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSlow and well mannered, the paperbark maple settles at twenty to thirty feet with a rounded, oval crown, a scale that suits a small lawn, a courtyard, or the corner of a mixed border. Site this maple where the trunk can be read at close range, beside a path, a patio, or a window framed for winter, and give the bark a dark backdrop of evergreens to play against. Adaptable to clay and to both acid and alkaline ground, the tree asks only for reasonable drainage and a few patient years of watering to establish.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"1 Gallon","offer_id":42961950474355,"sku":"ACER-GRIS-01G","price":31.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"1 Quart","offer_id":42961950507123,"sku":"ACER-GRIS-01Q","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/AcergriseumWoodlanders-3.jpg?v=1750637242"},{"product_id":"aleurites-fordii","title":"Aleurites fordii","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe tung oil tree is a handsome medium-sized deciduous tree, broad and spreading, with large heart-shaped to lobed leaves up to ten inches across and showy panicles of white flowers, blushed pink and orange at the throat, that open in spring before or with the new foliage. Few flowering trees of the Deep South make a fuller spring show.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAleurites fordii\u003c\/em\u003e earns the name from the large seeds, which yield tung oil, a fast-drying oil long prized for paints, varnishes, and wood finishes. Native to China, the tung oil tree was once an important crop across the Deep South, and the legacy of those old groves lingers: the tree grows fast and self-sows freely, naturalizing along roadsides and field edges where the climate is warm. The seeds and leaves are poisonous, so the tree is grown for ornament and history rather than harvest, and is best sited away from where children might gather the fallen fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive the tung oil tree full sun to light shade and well-drained soil, with room for the wide, rounded crown to spread, and enjoy one of the showiest spring-flowering trees for zones 8 to 10. A vigorous grower that sows volunteers freely, the tree is happiest where the odd seedling can be pulled or mown, and gathering the spent fruit keeps a planting in bounds. Striking as a lawn specimen or at a woodland edge, the bold foliage casting a generous summer shade, a piece of agricultural history for the warm-climate garden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057808248947,"sku":"ALEU-FORD-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1610.jpg?v=1720136235"},{"product_id":"arbutus-x-andrachnoides","title":"Arbutus x andrachnoides","description":"\u003cp\u003eA hybrid strawberry tree, \u003cem\u003eArbutus\u003c\/em\u003e x \u003cem\u003eandrachnoides\u003c\/em\u003e crosses the strawberry tree, \u003cem\u003eArbutus unedo\u003c\/em\u003e, with the Grecian strawberry tree, \u003cem\u003eA. andrachne\u003c\/em\u003e, and takes the best of both: white, bell-shaped flowers and pink, strawberry-like fruit on a small evergreen tree, over dark green leaves an inch and a half to four inches long. The real prize comes with age, when the bark peels away to a smooth, rich red-brown that rivals any madrone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSalt tolerant and handsome year round, this hybrid came to Woodlanders by way of Brookside Gardens in Maryland, which had obtained the plant in Europe. Slow growing and long-lived, the tree makes an elegant small specimen where the flowers, fruit, and above all the cinnamon bark can be enjoyed at close range.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive the hybrid strawberry tree full sun to part shade and well-drained soil, and a spot near a path, patio, or entry where the polished red-brown trunk can be admired. Drought and salt tolerant once established, a fine evergreen for a coastal or Mediterranean-style planting in zones 7 to 9.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057811198067,"sku":"ARBU-ANDR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1111.jpg?v=1720136403"},{"product_id":"asimina-triloba","title":"Asimina triloba","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe pawpaw is a small, tropical-looking deciduous tree with large, drooping leaves and the largest edible fruit native to this country. In mid to late summer the green, mango-shaped fruit softens to a fragrant custard, banana and mango in one, around rows of big dark seeds, relished by people and raccoons alike. The crushed leaves carry a distinctive odor, and the whole tree reads more like the tropics than a temperate woodland.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAsimina triloba\u003c\/em\u003e sends up many root suckers and forms colonies, the natural way of the species, and prefers deep, rich soil and dependable moisture. Pawpaw is self-sterile, so plant more than one, ideally unrelated seedlings, for cross-pollination and a good fruit set. Some nurseries offer named varieties selected for larger or sweeter fruit. Native to the eastern United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive pawpaw a sheltered, fertile spot in sun to part shade, with young trees appreciating some shade and mature ones fruiting best in sun. The tree anchors an edible landscape, a woodland edge, or a naturalized planting, and serves as the sole host of the zebra swallowtail butterfly. The soft gold fall color is a quiet bonus.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057813721203,"sku":"ASIM-TRIL-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/AsiminatrilobaJimRobbins1.jpg?v=1783096578"},{"product_id":"carpinus-caroliniana","title":"Carpinus caroliniana","description":"\u003cp\u003eCarpinus caroliniana is a native tree that hides its best feature in plain sight, a smooth, gray, sinewy bark that ripples over the trunk like the muscles of a flexed arm, giving the common names musclewood and ironwood. This small, slow, dense understory tree of eastern North America carries fine, birch-like leaves and a rounded, layered crown. The wood beneath that muscled bark is famously hard and heavy, the reason ironwood stuck as a name.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild, American hornbeam grows along stream banks, floodplains, and moist woods, deep in the shade of taller trees, and belongs to the birch family alongside the hop hornbeams, hazels, and alders. The names tangle: musclewood, ironwood, blue beech, and water beech all point to this one tree, the last two for the smooth gray bark that recalls a beech. Spring brings inconspicuous green catkins, followed by small nutlets slung in leafy, hop-like clusters that feed birds and small mammals into fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere many small trees demand sun, hornbeam thrives in shade to full sun, asking mainly for good, moist soil, and rewards the patient gardener with a clean, refined presence and fall color that runs from yellow through orange to red. The hard wood that earned the ironwood name once went into tool handles, mallets, and ox yokes, taking a horn-like polish. Slow and long-lived, this is a tree that settles in and holds its form for decades.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUse Carpinus caroliniana as a lawn or specimen tree, an understory planting beneath larger trees, or a small tree for a rain garden or damp corner where the roots run cool and moist. The dense, twiggy frame takes shearing well and lends itself to hedges and formal training, and the muscled bark carries the winter scene once the leaves have fallen. For a tough, native, shade-tolerant small tree, few match the quiet appeal of musclewood.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057827090547,"sku":"CARP-CARO-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/CarpinuscarolinianaMBG.jpg?v=1784300313"},{"product_id":"carya-aquatica","title":"Carya aquatica","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCarya aquatica\u003c\/em\u003e, the water hickory or bitter pecan, is a large native tree of the walnut family, reaching ninety feet and more in the wild. Across the American South the species dominates clay flats and the backwater ground near streams and rivers, reproducing aggressively by seed and by sprouts from roots and cut stumps, and forming a major part of the region's wetland forests, in part because the more marketable timber trees around the water hickory have so often been logged out.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe tree earns a place in the working landscape as much as the garden. By slowing floodwater and letting sediment settle, water hickory helps cleanse drainage through a bottomland, and the autumn nuts feed wood ducks, squirrels, and other wildlife (the kernels are bitter, hence the common name, and not for the table). Tolerant of wet, periodically flooded ground yet at finest on deep, well-drained soil near water, this is a tree for a large, damp, naturalistic site.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe genus is ancient: \u003cem\u003eCarya\u003c\/em\u003e ranged widely in the Tertiary, with fossils recorded from Colorado and Washington and as far afield as China, Japan, Europe, and western Siberia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePhoto credit to John Lampkin.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057827450995,"sku":"CARY-AQUA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/carya_aquatica.jpg?v=1721317540"},{"product_id":"carya-ovata","title":"Carya ovata","description":"\u003cp\u003eCarya ovata, the shagbark hickory, is one of the great native trees of the eastern woods, as easy to know by the bark as by the nuts. Mature trunks shed long, gray plates that curl away at the ends and hang loose, giving the tree a genuinely shaggy silhouette against a winter sky. Beneath that ragged coat stands a tall, straight, long-lived hardwood that can shade a landscape for two centuries and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe nuts are the other glory, sweet and rich and widely counted among the finest of all the hickories. That food value runs deep in the land's history, for the word hickory itself comes from the Virginia Algonquian pawcohiccora, a nourishing milk pounded from the nuts, and the crop still feeds squirrels, chipmunks, turkeys, and bears through the fall. A shagbark begins bearing slowly, then rewards generations, with the best years coming to trees well over half a century old.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShagbark hickory belongs to the walnut family, kin to the pecan and the walnuts, and like them casts a little juglone into the soil, though far more gently than a black walnut. The pinnately compound leaves turn a warm golden brown in fall and release a clean, spicy scent when crushed, and the tree stands among the most valuable of native hosts, feeding the caterpillars of the luna moth and the great hickory horned devil. The hard, shock-resistant wood has long gone into tool handles and, famously, the smoke that flavors hickory-smoked meats.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive Carya ovata full sun and room, on moist, well-drained soil, and plant while the tree is young, since a deep taproot makes an older hickory very hard to move. This is a tree for the long view, a canopy shade tree for a large lawn, a woodland, or a wildlife planting where the nuts and autumn gold can be enjoyed for lifetimes. For a gardener planting for the future, few native trees give more than a shagbark hickory.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057827844211,"sku":"CARY-OVAT-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1135.jpg?v=1720137044"},{"product_id":"castanea-mollissima","title":"Castanea mollissima","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew trees carry as much historical weight as the chestnuts, and \u003cem\u003eCastanea mollissima\u003c\/em\u003e carries it gracefully. This handsome, wide-spreading Chinese native stepped into the void left by one of the great ecological tragedies of the twentieth century, the near-total collapse of the American chestnut, and has been feeding people, wildlife, and the soil ever since. Come fall, the spiny husks crack open to reveal some of the largest, sweetest chestnuts a gardener can grow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe story behind the tree is worth knowing. When chestnut blight (\u003cem\u003eCryphonectria parasitica\u003c\/em\u003e) arrived from Asia in 1904, the disease moved through eastern North America with devastating efficiency, killing an estimated four billion \u003cem\u003eCastanea dentata\u003c\/em\u003e trees within fifty years and erasing an entire ecological keystone, mast producer, wildlife anchor, and timber tree from the canopy. Native to China and Korea and having evolved alongside the blight for millennia, \u003cem\u003eCastanea mollissima\u003c\/em\u003e carries a natural resistance the American chestnut never had the chance to develop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat this tree brings to the garden is considerable on its own terms: vigorous and generous growth, broad and leafy, casting real shade by midsummer, and in autumn a harvest that can be genuinely abundant. The nuts are large by chestnut standards, rich-flavored, and surprisingly versatile in the kitchen, and the wildlife find them just as compelling, honestly probably more so. A living thread connecting the ecological history of two continents, and a deeply worthwhile addition to any landscape with room to let the canopy breathe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhotos courtesy of Jim Robbins and Cathy Dewitt.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057828794483,"sku":"CAST-MOLL-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Castanea_mollissima__jimrobbinswoodlanders2.jpg?v=1773603726"},{"product_id":"cercis-canadensis","title":"Cercis canadensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew native trees announce spring like Cercis canadensis, the eastern redbud, whose bare branches flush rosy pink and magenta weeks before the dogwoods open. The small pea-like flowers cluster not just along the twigs but straight from the older branches and even the trunk, a charming trick called cauliflory, and give way to broad, heart-shaped leaves. A small, graceful understory tree of eastern and central North America, redbud belongs in the legume family, kin to peas and beans.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThose early flowers do real work, offering some of the season's first nectar and pollen to native bees, among them the specialist southeastern blueberry bee and the bumblebees. The blossoms are edible too, tart and high in vitamin C, long scattered raw over salads, folded into breads and pancakes, pickled, or fried. For a few weeks each spring the whole small tree seems dipped in pink, cheerful out of all proportion to the modest size.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter the flowers come the leaves, rounded valentines that hold clean green through summer and turn soft yellow in fall, followed by flat, bean-like pods that rattle on the branches into winter. The genus name comes from the Greek kerkis, a weaver's shuttle, for the shape of those pods. Redbud is a legume without the nitrogen-fixing habit of many in the family, grown instead for beauty, for pollinators, and for the sheer welcome of the bloom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive Cercis canadensis full sun to part shade and any decent, well-drained soil, and site the tree where the spring show can be seen, at a woodland edge, along a drive, or against a darker evergreen backdrop that sets off the pink. Adaptable, quick to bloom while young, and beloved by early bees, redbud earns a place as a specimen, in a native or pollinator planting, or naturalized at the edge of the woods. This is one of the most cheerful of all the small native trees.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057830531187,"sku":"CERC-CANA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1877.jpg?v=1720137133"},{"product_id":"chionanthus-virginicus","title":"Chionanthus virginicus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe native fringetree is one of the great small trees of the southern spring. \u003cem\u003eChionanthus virginicus\u003c\/em\u003e, a deciduous large shrub or small tree, often multi-stemmed, hangs the whole canopy with fleecy, drooping panicles of narrow white petals in spring, soft as torn paper and lightly fragrant, a look that earned the old country names old man's beard and grancy graybeard. On female plants the flowers give way to clusters of raisin-sized, deep blue-purple fruits that birds take quickly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders grows the southern form, which some botanists have called \u003cem\u003eChionanthus henryi\u003c\/em\u003e, with leaves that are narrower, more glossy, and of heavier texture than those of the northern form, a handsomer plant in leaf as well as in flower. The fringetree carries a long American history beyond the garden as well: Native peoples and later settlers used a tea of the root bark to wash wounds and sores, and nineteenth-century Eclectic physicians prized the dried root bark, which they called Chionanthus, as a bitter tonic for the liver and gallbladder.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, the fringetree is an easy, adaptable, four-season ornamental, grown in sun or light shade in good, well-drained soil. Use the tree as a specimen near a path, a patio, or a window where the spring fleece and light fragrance can be enjoyed close up, and give a darker backdrop to set off the white. Underplant with shade-tolerant natives, and pair with dogwoods and native azaleas that share the spring season. A female plant set near a male will fruit for the birds.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057833742451,"sku":"CHIO-VIRG-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/6364A441-4F65-4324-85CC-9EF222279E9E.jpg?v=1783641863"},{"product_id":"chionanthus-retusus-var-serrulatus","title":"Chionanthus retusus var. serrulatus","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor a week or two in late spring, the Chinese fringetree disappears under snow. \u003cem\u003eChionanthus retusus\u003c\/em\u003e var. serrulatus is a deciduous small tree of East Asia, native to China, Korea, and Japan, and the great show is the flowering: dense, lacy, fringed panicles of pure white, each petal narrow and strap-like, smothering the canopy so thickly that the foliage all but vanishes. The genus name says as much, from the Greek chion, snow, and anthos, flower.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species has been admired in Chinese gardens for centuries, and this serrulate-leaved variety, with finely toothed leaves, is among the more refined forms. Beyond the spring spectacle, fringetrees are quietly generous through the year: a light, sweet fragrance on the flowers, glossy dark green summer leaves, and, on female trees, clusters of small bluish-black fruits in late summer that draw birds and other wildlife. The bark grows handsomely ridged and furrowed with age, giving winter character once the canopy is bare.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, the Chinese fringetree makes a superb small specimen or patio tree, slow-growing, clean, and well-behaved, with a rounded, spreading head sized for a courtyard or a modest lawn. Site where the late-spring bloom can be seen in full, near a path, a terrace, or a window, and give a darker backdrop of evergreens to throw the white flowers forward. Underplant with low groundcovers or spring bulbs, and pair with other small flowering trees to extend the season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdditional photos courtesy of David J. Stang.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057833840755,"sku":"CHIO-RETU-SERR-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Chionanthus_retusus_var._serrulatus_2zz.jpg?v=1749576560"},{"product_id":"cinnamomum-wilsonii","title":"Cinnamomum wilsonii","description":"\u003cp\u003eA rare evergreen tree from southern China, seldom seen in cultivation, \u003cem\u003eCinnamomum wilsonii\u003c\/em\u003e belongs to the cinnamon and camphor clan, and the kinship shows in the glossy, leathery, dark green leaves, four to five inches long and marked with three bold veins that run nearly to the tip. Crushed or bruised, the foliage and bark give off the warm, spicy fragrance the genus is loved for. The Chinese name, chuan gui, places the tree in Sichuan and the mountains of the south, where the tree grows large and the aromatic bark has long been valued.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders grows a subtropical species that has surprised us with cold tolerance: proven hardy in Aiken, South Carolina, and even at Raleigh, North Carolina, well north of where a tree of this heritage has any right to thrive. In frost-free and near-frost-free gardens, the wilson cinnamon makes a handsome, dense, broad-canopied evergreen for shade and screening.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, give this tree room. Reaching well over fifty feet in China, the wilson cinnamon wants an open, uncrowded site in moist but well-drained, fertile soil, in sun or light shade. Plant as a specimen, a large evergreen screen, or the high canopy of a warm-climate garden, where the spicy-scented foliage rewards anyone who brushes past. A collector's tree, and a conversation piece for gardeners pushing the limits of subtropical evergreens.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057834496115,"sku":"CINN-WILS-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1428.jpg?v=1720137240"},{"product_id":"cinnamomum-burmannii","title":"Cinnamomum burmannii","description":"\u003cp\u003eCinnamomum burmannii is the tree behind most of the cinnamon in an American kitchen, an evergreen of the laurel family whose fragrant inner bark, dried and ground, fills the great majority of the spice jars labeled simply cinnamon. Native to the highlands of Indonesia and across tropical Southeast Asia, this glossy-leaved tree is a cassia cinnamon, close kin to true Ceylon cinnamon, to the camphor tree, and to bay laurel, sassafras, and avocado. The whole plant is aromatic, from the leathery leaves to the spicy bark.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe bark is the prize, peeled, dried, and curled into quills or milled to the familiar warm-sweet powder used across baking, curries, and mulled drinks. A note worth making: cassia cinnamons like this one are naturally higher in coumarin than Ceylon cinnamon, a compound best taken in moderation, so the spice is for flavor rather than daily medicine. New leaves emerge with a soft pink flush, the small creamy flowers are barely noticed, and the little dark fruits that follow draw birds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders grows a number of cinnamons, and this one arrived through the generosity of the late Bill Cawthon, a friend who shared cuttings and reported the tree half hardy in southeastern Alabama, at the cold edge of zone 8. That observation is a starting point rather than a promise, since Woodlanders has not yet trialed this cinnamon for cold hardiness in the local climate. In frost-free gardens the tree grows into a handsome evergreen; in colder spots the plant makes a fragrant container specimen to shelter through winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive Cinnamomum burmannii full sun to part shade and rich, evenly moist, well-drained soil, and expect steady, moderate growth into a dense, rounded canopy. Grown for fragrance, foliage, and the sheer interest of raising the source of a pantry staple, the tree suits a warm Southern garden, a large container, or a collector's grouping of useful plants. Few trees carry a scent so tied to comfort and the kitchen.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057834528883,"sku":"CINN-BURM-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Cinnamomum_burmannii_HongKongEducation.jpg?v=1784301073"},{"product_id":"citrus-x-citrus-ponciris-trifoliata-x-citrus-reticulata-changsha-x-english-large","title":"Hardy Citrus 'Changsha x English Large'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is a cold-hardy citrus hybrid bred to carry oranges into gardens too cold for ordinary citrus, a cross between the trifoliate orange, Poncirus trifoliata, in the large-flowered form called 'English Large', and the notably hardy Changsha mandarin, Citrus reticulata. Both parents are prized for cold tolerance, and stacking the two produces a small, thorny tree that shrugs off freezes that would kill a true orange. The cross matches the well-known US-852 citrandarin, a hardy-citrus line from the USDA breeding program.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result is a small, thorny tree, semi-evergreen in mild winters and briefly deciduous in hard ones, carrying fragrant white spring flowers and small orange fruits. The chief value here is toughness rather than dessert quality, since the fruit runs small and seedy, a curiosity and an ornament more than a fresh-eating orange. Where the appeal lies is in growing recognizable citrus, in flower and in fruit, far outside the citrus belt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders has been a leader in cold-hardy citrus for decades, and this Poncirus and Changsha hybrid fits squarely in that tradition, hardy to somewhere near zero degrees and reliable through zone 7. The trifoliate orange parent lends both the cold hardiness and the fierce thorns, which make the tree a formidable barrier or security hedge as well as a conversation piece. Fragrant in spring and studded with little oranges in fall, this is citrus for the adventurous northern gardener.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive the hybrid full sun and well-drained soil, and expect steady growth into a small, well-armed tree. Use the plant as a cold-hardy citrus novelty for the edible-landscape enthusiast, a thorny living fence, or a collector's piece with a real breeding pedigree behind it. For a gardener who has always wanted to grow an orange where oranges are not supposed to grow, few plants are as satisfying.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhoto used is straight Changsha, we do not yet have a photo of this hybrid.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057838461043,"sku":"CITR-PONC-TRIF-CHAN-01G","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Citrus_reticulata_Changsha_Woodlanders_2.jpg?v=1731555826"},{"product_id":"cladrastis-kentukea","title":"Cladrastis kentukea","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmerican yellowwood is one of the loveliest and least common of our native trees, a broad, round-headed deciduous tree grown for three good seasons of interest. In late spring, usually May, long pendulous panicles of white, pea-like flowers hang from the branch tips, sweetly fragrant and wisteria-like, a spectacle in the years the tree chooses to flower heavily. Summer brings clean, bright-then-deep green compound foliage, and autumn a dependable, clear golden yellow that is among the best fall color of any hardwood. The smooth gray bark, beech-like, holds the winter garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name comes from the wood: freshly cut, the heartwood is a clear yellow that once yielded a natural dye. \u003cem\u003eCladrastis kentukea\u003c\/em\u003e is native to scattered limestone woodlands of the southern and central United States, genuinely rare in the wild, yet long a favorite ornamental far to the north, hardy well into the cold. The tree takes many soils but is happiest on the rich, well-drained, higher-pH ground of the native haunts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, give yellowwood a sunny, open spot with room to spread the wide, low crown, a lawn specimen, a shade tree, or the centerpiece of a large border. Prune only in summer, since the tree bleeds sap heavily if cut in late winter, and train early for strong, wide-angled branches, as the wood can be brittle. A refined, four-season native worth the wait for the flowering years.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"1 Gallon","offer_id":42961910628467,"sku":"CLAD-KENT-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"1 Quart","offer_id":42961910661235,"sku":"CLAD-KENT-01Q","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Cladrastis-kentukea-_o2eLMDPAOZUU.jpg?v=1743777042"},{"product_id":"cornus-florida-suwanee-squat","title":"Cornus florida 'Suwanee Squat'","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThere is a version of the flowering dogwood almost nobody has met. \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e 'Suwanee Squat' was found in Suwannee County, Florida, by Bob Simons, a forest ecologist who spent half a century protecting the wild hardwood country of north Florida.\u003c\/strong\u003e As a young man in the early 1970s he walked a mixed-hardwood hammock outside Gainesville, decided the place was worth saving, and talked ten landowners and the state into making it San Felasco Hammock; that became the pattern of his life. A man who knew that kind of forest the way most of us know our own street is exactly the sort to notice a dogwood doing something a dogwood is not supposed to do. Woodlanders introduced his low, sprawling oddity to cultivation, and the plant has stayed scarce ever since, the kind of tree you mostly hear about secondhand from someone who saw one and never got over it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere the species reaches for the canopy, 'Suwanee Squat' does the opposite, running wide and staying close to the ground, branches layering outward in flat, horizontal tiers. Our stock plant has sat at roughly waist height and four feet across for years now, in no apparent hurry; given a long enough run the tree may slowly gain a little more height, but height has never been the point. The point is the spread, and the architecture of that spread, the way these low limbs pool at the foot of taller things rather than competing with them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are pure \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e: four creamy white bracts cupped around a knot of small true flowers, blooming heavily in early spring. Strung out along those low limbs, the bracts read as a scattered horizontal drift instead of the familiar upright cloud, catching light down at the woodland floor where you do not expect to find it. Come autumn the leaves turn through red and burgundy and bronze, a quieter second season. And unlike the contorted, sullen-looking weeping dogwoods this selection sometimes gets shelved beside, 'Suwanee Squat' keeps clean, well-mannered foliage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive the tree partial shade to shade and rich, well-drained soil, and resist the urge to plant deep; dogwoods like to sit high, the root flare just grazing the soil line. Let the low limbs cascade over a low wall, settle the pitch of a slope, or build out the layered edge of a shaded bed. \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e is woven deep into the eastern woods and into most of our earliest garden memories. 'Suwanee Squat' is that same familiar tree, lying down, found by a man who spent his life making sure such places stayed standing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057847472243,"sku":"CORN-FLOR-SUWA-SQUA-01G","price":34.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1350.jpg?v=1720137637"},{"product_id":"cornus-kousa","title":"Cornus kousa","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis elegant small tree carries a graceful, vase-shaped habit that rounds out with age. Blooming two to three weeks after \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e, the kousa dogwood opens striking, pointed flower bracts in late spring to early summer, extending the dogwood season. The bracts surround clusters of tiny true flowers in a star-like display that sets this dogwood apart.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn late summer come vibrant, raspberry-like fruits, red and rounded, that draw birds and are edible for people too, sweet-pulped if a little soft in texture. The exfoliating bark peels away in patches, revealing a mosaic of rich brown, gray, and tan that adds real winter beauty once the branches are bare.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNotably more drought-tolerant and more disease-resistant than \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e, the kousa dogwood suits a wide range of North American climates, at home in both city gardens and naturalized landscapes. Whether set as a standout specimen or woven into a border, this dogwood offers four seasons of interest, from lush foliage to flowers, fruit, and bark.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057847734387,"sku":"CORN-KOUS-01G","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/CornuskousaMBG4.jpg?v=1731871642"},{"product_id":"cornus-kousa-var-chinensis","title":"Cornus kousa var. chinensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis Chinese dogwood is a spreading, small to medium deciduous tree with clean foliage and showy white-bracted flowers. Unlike the native American flowering dogwood, the bracts are sharply pointed. The tree flowers about a month later than \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e, and is apparently immune or resistant to some of the disease problems that trouble \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e in certain areas. A fine ornamental for an open, semi-shady lawn or border.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a variety of the kousa dogwood, this Chinese form carries the same star-like early-summer bloom, glossy foliage that reddens in fall, and raspberry-like fruit the birds enjoy, on a slightly more open, spreading frame. The showy bracts open white and often blush pink as they age, floating against fresh green since the tree blooms after leafing out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite the Chinese dogwood as a specimen near a patio or path, or at a woodland edge among azaleas and other understory companions, where the late-spring bracts read against a darker backdrop. Give high shade or morning sun with afternoon shelter in the hottest gardens, and enjoy a dogwood that shrugs off much of the disease that troubles the natives.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057848029299,"sku":"CORN-KOUS-VAR-CHIN-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-49.jpg?v=1720137656"},{"product_id":"cornus-florida-welchs-junior-miss","title":"Cornus florida \"Welch's Junior Miss\"","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e, the flowering dogwood, is the beloved understory tree of the eastern North American woods, widely planted for the great show of white spring bracts (the true flowers are the small green knot at the center), and, in selections like this one, pink. A deciduous woodland tree that grows in moist, well-drained soil in sun or high, dappled shade, the dogwood rewards careful planting: set the root flare high, and never plant too deep.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Welch's Junior Miss' is a fine pink-flowered selection of Deep South provenance, which makes this cultivar the best pink dogwood for the warmer zones, where many northern pinks color poorly in the heat. The tree was selected by the late 'Chick' Welch of Wilmer, Alabama, near Mobile, and carries a warm, clear pink that holds up in the southern spring.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite 'Welch's Junior Miss' as a specimen near a patio, a path, or a window framed for spring, or at a woodland edge among native azaleas and other understory companions, where the pink bracts can be read against a darker backdrop. Give high shade or morning sun with afternoon shelter in the Deep South, and the glossy red fall fruit will draw songbirds while the foliage turns wine-red.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057851666547,"sku":"CORN-FLOR-WELC-JUNI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1972.jpg?v=1720137684"},{"product_id":"crataegus-harbisonii","title":"Crataegus harbisonii","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCrataegus harbisonii\u003c\/em\u003e is a small, thorny, deciduous hawthorn with unusually large leaves for the genus, white spring flowers, and red fall fruit. Behind that modest description stands one of the rarest trees in North America: Harbison's hawthorn was perhaps once fairly common around central Tennessee, but is now all but extinct in the wild.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe hawthorn expert Ron Lance, after intensive searches of the formerly known and likely sites around Nashville, could locate only a couple of surviving wild specimens. The plants Woodlanders offers are progeny of those few remaining trees, propagated by Mr. Lance. Because Harbison's hawthorn is not yet federally listed as endangered, growing this tree is entirely legal, and a real chance to hold, and perhaps help save, a genuinely imperiled native.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite Harbison's hawthorn in full sun to part shade in well-drained soil, as a specimen or in a native and conservation planting, where the white flowers feed spring pollinators and the red haws draw birds. A collector's tree with a serious conservation story behind every plant.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057852813427,"sku":"CRAT-HARB-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1788.jpg?v=1720137718"},{"product_id":"crataegus-opaca","title":"Crataegus opaca","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is a tree you harvest from a boat. \u003cem\u003eCrataegus opaca\u003c\/em\u003e, the western mayhaw, grows wild in the flooded bottoms of the Gulf Coastal Plain, the cypress sloughs and pond margins of east Texas, Louisiana, and the Deep South, and when their fruit ripens in late spring it drops straight into the water and floats. For generations Southern families went out in May with boats, nets, and scoops to gather the bobbing red haws off the surface, a fast three weeks of work that turned into a year's worth of jelly. The name says as much: mayhaw, for the month, and haw, the old word for hawthorn.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe jelly is the whole point, and it is genuinely famous. The fruit is a small coral pome, tart and loaded with pectin, kin to the apple and the rose, setting into a clear, bright, half-wild preserve that whole towns organize around. Colquitt, Georgia simply calls itself the Mayhaw Capital of the World and throws a festival every April; Louisiana made the tree its official state fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBefore any of that, in early spring, they smother their bare gray branches in clouds of white hawthorn bloom, early and generous, a gift to the first pollinators of the year. They were born in standing water but do not insist on it, and will settle happily into an ordinary garden given steady moisture. Plant one for the blossom, the birds, and the biscuits to come.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Bare Root","offer_id":42820418273395,"sku":"CRAT-OPAC-BARE","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"1 Gallon","offer_id":42820418306163,"sku":"CRAT-OPAC-01G","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/WEB-030891.jpg?v=1751031939"},{"product_id":"crataegus-marshallii","title":"Crataegus marshallii","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe parsley haw, \u003cem\u003eCrataegus marshallii\u003c\/em\u003e, is a distinctive and graceful small native tree, named for the shiny, deeply dissected, parsley-like leaves that set the whole genus apart at a glance. White flowers centered with rosy-red stamens open in spring, followed by bright red fruit that lingers into fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to the Piedmont and Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States, where the parsley haw grows on moist sites, this hawthorn is one of the easiest of a famously confusing genus to identify, and one of the most ornamental. The fine-textured foliage, the airy spring bloom, and the red haws make a refined small tree for average garden and residential soils.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite the parsley haw as a specimen near a patio or path, at a woodland edge, or in a native or wildlife planting, where the lacy leaves and spring flowers can be read up close and the red fruit can feed the birds. Give full sun to part shade and steady moisture, and enjoy one of the most distinctive of the native hawthorns.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhoto courtesy of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.wildflower.org\/gallery\/result.php?id_image=64106\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"\u003eAlan Cressler\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057853403251,"sku":"CRAT-MARS-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Crataegusmarshallii3.jpg?v=1722715898"},{"product_id":"diospyros-virginiana","title":"Diospyros virginiana","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe botanical name reads like a compliment: \u003cem\u003eDiospyros\u003c\/em\u003e joins the Greek \u003cem\u003edios\u003c\/em\u003e, divine, to \u003cem\u003epyros\u003c\/em\u003e, grain, so the genus translates roughly as \"fruit of the gods,\" a lofty title for a tree that drops sweet, homely orange fruit onto the forest floor each autumn. The common name travels the other direction, plain and American, from the Powhatan word \u003cem\u003eputchamin\u003c\/em\u003e for a dried fruit, a reminder that Native peoples were drying persimmons into cakes long before the botanists arrived.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDiospyros virginiana\u003c\/em\u003e is a medium, deciduous tree of the ebony family, native across the eastern United States, pyramidal in youth and rounding with age. The deeply blocky, gray-black bark, cracked into neat squares like alligator hide, is one of the surest ways to know the tree in winter. Persimmon is dioecious, carrying male and female flowers on separate trees, and only the females bear fruit; the small, greenish-yellow, bell-shaped blooms of late spring are quiet but draw bees in numbers. We offer seedling trees of undetermined sex.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fruit is a lesson in patience. Bite one too soon and the tannins seize the whole mouth shut, which is exactly why generations of country children have dared each other to try. Left to ripen, often past the first frost, the same fruit turns to soft, honeyed pulp prized for puddings, breads, and preserves. Beyond the kitchen, persimmon has long served as a medicinal tree: the astringent inner bark was traditionally made into a wash for sore throats, and a vitamin-rich leaf tea was taken as a tonic. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/blogs\/news\/american-persimmon-a-healing-gift\"\u003eLearn about the healing properties of the American Persimmon here.\u003c\/a\u003e The wood, meanwhile, is among the hardest in North America, dense enough that the heads of old golf clubs and the shuttles of textile looms were once turned from persimmon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the landscape, give \u003cem\u003eDiospyros virginiana\u003c\/em\u003e room as a specimen shade tree, a wildlife tree at a woodland edge, or an anchor in an edible or native planting. Persimmon tolerates a wide range of soil and moisture and asks little once established, and the autumn fruit feeds deer, foxes, opossums, and birds as generously as the gardener. Set the tree where the ripe fruit can drop without staining a patio, and plant a known female, or a group of seedlings, if a crop is the goal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhoto courtesy of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.wildflower.org\/gallery\/result.php?id_image=45420\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eAlan Cressler\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057860382835,"sku":"DIOS-VIRG-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Diospyrosvirginiana.png?v=1733437566"},{"product_id":"diospyros-texana","title":"Diospyros texana","description":"\u003cp\u003eDiospyros texana, the Texas persimmon, is a small, tough native tree grown above all for the bark, which peels away in thin flakes to reveal a smooth, mottled patchwork of white, gray, and pink beneath. Intricately and crookedly branched, this is a sculptural little tree, as handsome bare in winter as it is in leaf. A creature of the Texas hill country and northern Mexico, the Texas persimmon shrugs off heat, drought, and lean limestone soil that would defeat softer plants.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSmall, fragrant, urn-shaped white flowers open in spring, and because the tree is dioecious, only female plants set fruit, and only where a male grows nearby. That fruit is worth waiting for, a round, sweet, black persimmon ripening in late summer, good fresh or in jams, and long used to make a black dye for hides. Birds, foxes, and other wildlife take the crop as eagerly as any gardener, and the flowers feed bees.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe persimmons belong to the ebony family, and Texas persimmon carries the family trait in a dense, nearly black heartwood, prized for carving and small turned goods. Unlike the common persimmon of the eastern woods, Diospyros virginiana, this southwestern cousin stays small and semi-evergreen, holding the dark, leathery little leaves late into the season in mild winters and dropping them where the cold bites harder. Slow-growing and long-lived, the tree rewards patience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive Diospyros texana full sun and well-drained soil, ideally on the alkaline, rocky ground this tree knows best, and expect a tough, drought-proof specimen for a courtyard, patio, or xeric border. The peeling bark and twisting branches make a year-round focal point, while the fruit and flowers earn a place in any wildlife or native planting. For a small, water-wise tree with real character, few natives of the Southwest can match the Texas persimmon.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057860644979,"sku":"DIOS-TE-ANA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DiospyrostexanaSusanShroederFruit.jpg?v=1784306507"},{"product_id":"ehretia-anacua","title":"Ehretia anacua","description":"\u003cp\u003eAnacua, \u003cem\u003eEhretia anacua\u003c\/em\u003e, is one of the signature small trees of the south Texas brush country and the lower Rio Grande, a member of the borage family that goes by a small crowd of names. The rough, sandpapery upper surface of the leaves earns the tag sandpaper tree, while old-timers along the border call the tree anacua or, corrupted through generations, knockaway. Evergreen to semi-evergreen depending on the winter, the anacua holds dark green, leathery leaves that feel like fine grit under a thumb.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn spring, and often again after summer rains, the tree covers itself in dense two-to-three-inch panicles of small, white, sweetly fragrant flowers, a display heavy enough to look like a late snow and rich enough to draw clouds of bees. The flowers give way to small, round drupes about a quarter inch across that ripen from green through yellow to orange. The fruit is edible and pleasantly sweet, if a little mealy, and has long been eaten fresh or cooked into jellies, though people tend to lose the race to the birds and mammals that strip a fruiting anacua in short order.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnacua shifts shape with the site. On good ground with room and water the tree matures into a round-crowned specimen twenty to forty feet tall with handsome, flaking, cinnamon-and-gray bark, while on dry, poor soils the same species stays lower and suckers into a dense, multi-stemmed thicket. Both forms are useful: the single-trunk tree makes a tough, drought-proof shade or street tree for hot climates, and the suckering form reads as a wildlife hedge or screen. Let the anacua stand as a specimen where the spring bloom and the fruiting birds can be enjoyed, or plant a run of them for cover.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLittle troubles this tree. Native to south Texas and northeastern Mexico and hardy in USDA zones 8 through 11, the anacua takes full sun, tolerates a wide range of soils including thin, alkaline, caliche ground, and shrugs off heat and drought once established. Frost at the cold edge of the range may cut back young growth, but the tree returns. Uncommon in cultivation outside the native south Texas, the anacua deserves a wider audience among gardeners who want a tough, fragrant, wildlife-feeding native for difficult sites.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFruit picture courtesy of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.wildflower.org\/gallery\/result.php?id_image=28529\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eRachel Cywinski\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057864151155,"sku":"EHRE-ANAC-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-985.jpg?v=1720137979"},{"product_id":"emmenopterys-henryi","title":"Emmenopterys henryi","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare in cultivation and rarer still in bloom, \u003cem\u003eEmmenopterys henryi\u003c\/em\u003e is a Chinese tree of the coffee family, \u003cem\u003eRubiaceae\u003c\/em\u003e, and a close relative of the native fever tree, \u003cem\u003ePinckneya\u003c\/em\u003e. Woodlanders was the first nursery to offer the species in the United States, and one of our own trees was the first to display the showy, pink-bracted flowers in the Western Hemisphere, a small piece of horticultural history rooted in South Carolina soil.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe tree carries the name of Augustine Henry, the Irish botanist and physician who found the tree in 1887 in the remote forests of Hubei Province while serving as a medical officer in China. Two decades later, in 1907, the great plant hunter Ernest Henry Wilson collected seed for the Veitch Nurseries, and from those introductions \u003cem\u003eEmmenopterys henryi\u003c\/em\u003e made a slow way into the arboretums and botanic gardens of Europe and North America, always as a coveted rarity rather than a common tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePart of the legend is the tree's famous reluctance to flower. A young \u003cem\u003eEmmenopterys\u003c\/em\u003e may grow vigorously for years, even decades, before offering a first bloom, which is exactly what has made each flowering an event reported in the horticultural press. When the tree finally performs, usually in late summer, the reward is a spectacular display of large, creamy-white flowers, sweetly fragrant, some cradled by an enlarged, leaf-like white bract that flushes pink to rose as the season turns, so a flowering tree can look, from a distance, dusted with giant snowflakes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGiven time and space, \u003cem\u003eEmmenopterys henryi\u003c\/em\u003e makes a large, handsome, deciduous shade tree, upright and vigorous, with bold, glossy foliage that earns a place long before the first flowers arrive. Hardy in USDA zones 6 through 9, the tree wants full sun to part shade, deep, fertile, well-drained soil, and steady moisture while young. This is a specimen for the patient collector, an heirloom planted as much for the gardeners who will one day see the tree bloom as for the one who sets it in the ground. Photos courtesy of Julian Sutton and Abraham Rammeloo.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057864970355,"sku":"EMME-HENR-01G","price":42.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/emmenopterys-henryi-Arboretum_Kalmthout.jpg?v=1723991158"},{"product_id":"eriobotrya-japonica","title":"Eriobotrya japonica","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe loquat, \u003cem\u003eEriobotrya japonica\u003c\/em\u003e, is a handsome broadleaved evergreen of the rose family, kin to apples, pears, and hawthorns, grown for the bold foliage and the early, unusual fruit. Native to the warm-temperate hills of central China and cultivated in Japan for more than a thousand years, the loquat has traveled with settlers throughout the mild-winter world, from the Mediterranean to the American South, where old dooryard trees are a familiar sight. The large, leathery leaves, deeply veined and toothed along the edges, give the tree a lush, almost tropical presence year round.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe loquat keeps an upside-down calendar. Where most fruit trees bloom in spring, the loquat opens clusters of small, fragrant, cream-white flowers in late fall and early winter, filling cold air with a soft, sweet scent and feeding bees when little else is in flower. From those winter blooms come the fruits: small, oval, yellow to orange, with sweet-tart, honeyed flesh around a few large brown seeds, ripening in spring, months ahead of any other tree fruit. Whether a given year sets a heavy crop depends entirely on winter cold, since a hard freeze at or after flowering will take the blossoms and the fruit with them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the landscape the loquat pulls double duty as ornament and orchard. Left to grow, the tree makes a rounded, densely leafy small tree or large shrub, fifteen feet or more, excellent as an evergreen screen, a patio shade tree, or a bold-textured specimen against a wall. The fruit is best fresh off the branch but also makes fine jelly, jam, and preserves, and the trees carry a heavy crop where winters are kind. Give the loquat room, since the broad canopy and big leaves want space to look their best.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLoquats are easy in the right climate. Hardy in USDA zones 7 through 10, the tree wants full sun to part shade and fertile, well-drained soil, tolerates a range of ground so long as drainage is good, and shrugs off heat once established, though young trees and open flowers need protection from hard frost. Beyond the kitchen, loquat leaves have a long life in traditional Chinese and Japanese medicine, where they are known as pipa ye and brewed against coughs and chest complaints, an old use that modern research on the leaf's triterpenes continues to explore. Few small trees give so much: evergreen structure, winter fragrance, spring fruit, and a deep well of history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057865887859,"sku":"ERIO-JAPO-01G","price":18.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Eriobotrya_japonica__aNRTzyMHyegH.jpg?v=1743436212"},{"product_id":"exbucklandia-populnea","title":"Exbucklandia populnea","description":"\u003cp\u003eExbucklandia populnea is a rare evergreen tree that fools nearly everyone who meets it. The large, glossy, leathery leaves, sometimes shallowly three-lobed and carried on long stalks, look for all the world like those of a tulip poplar, yet the tree belongs to the witch-hazel family, a kinship few would ever guess. Bold and architectural, with bronze-red new growth and curious upright stipules capping each shoot, this is a foliage tree of real presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are a modest affair, small and reddish, gathered in little rounded heads and easy to overlook; the foliage is the whole show. Broad, deep green, and evergreen, the leaves flutter in the wind like an aspen's and flush bronze in cool weather, giving the tree a lush, almost tropical look uncommon in a hardy evergreen. In the mountains of southern China and the eastern Himalayas where the tree grows wild, the wood is valued for timber, but in the garden the draw is purely ornamental.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to the montane forests of southern China, the Himalayas, and mainland Southeast Asia, Exbucklandia is virtually unknown in Western gardens, a genuine collector's tree and one Woodlanders was among the first to offer in the United States. Serious plantspeople have sought the tree for years, drawn by the bold foliage and the botanical curiosity of a witch-hazel relative that looks like a poplar. Slow and evergreen, the tree makes a striking, uncommon addition to a mild-climate garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow Exbucklandia populnea in part shade to sun in moist, fertile, well-drained, acid soil, sheltered while young, in a climate no colder than about zone 7b. Give room, since the tree grows large in time, and site where the bold, poplar-like evergreen leaves can be appreciated as the centerpiece they deserve to be. For the collector who wants something almost no one else can grow, few trees are as quietly astonishing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057869394035,"sku":"E-BUCK-POPU-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/ExbucklandiapopulneaJackAldridge.jpg?v=1784307150"},{"product_id":"fagus-grandifolia","title":"Fagus grandifolia","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe American beech is one of the great presences of the eastern woods, a large, slow-growing deciduous tree that ranges through rich forests from southern Canada to the Gulf. Toothed oval leaves, several inches long, emerge a clean bright green, turn clear yellow in fall and then a warm russet-brown, and cling to the branches through much of winter, a habit called marcescence that gives the bare woods a soft papery whisper. The trunk is the signature: smooth, silver-gray, and elephantine, so inviting that generations have carved their initials into the living bark, a temptation best resisted since the wounds never truly heal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe genus name Fagus reaches back through Latin to a Greek root meaning to eat, a nod to the nourishing mast the tree has always offered, while grandifolia simply means large-leaved. The English word beech shares deep linguistic roots with book, for early Germanic peoples are said to have scratched their runes onto tablets of smooth beechwood, so that the tree and the written word grew up together in the northern imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe triangular beechnuts that ripen in fall are sweet and genuinely good to eat, relished by turkey, deer, bear, and squirrel, though so small and fiddly to shell that few people trouble to gather them. Native peoples made far fuller use of the tree. The Iroquois valued leaf and bark as a blood cleanser and an astringent tonic for wet conditions of the lungs, dressed burns and scalds with boiled leaves, and worked beechnut oil with bear grease into a repellent against mosquitoes; the Cherokee chewed the nuts to expel worms, and the Rappahannock steeped a bark tonic to ease the itch of poison ivy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden the American beech is a tree for the long view and the large property, a magnificent shade and specimen tree that asks for room, fertile ground, and patience. The dense canopy and shallow, greedy roots cast a shade so deep that little will grow beneath, so plan to underplant only at the outer dripline with the toughest woodland companions, autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora) or the arching Selaginella braunii, and leave the ground under the crown to fallen leaves. Give moist but well-drained soil and time, and the tree becomes, over decades, the silver-limbed anchor of a woodland. Do not hope to grow much of anything in the dense shade of a mature beech.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057869525107,"sku":"FAGU-GRAN-01G","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-70.jpg?v=1720138118"},{"product_id":"gordonia-lasianthus","title":"Gordonia lasianthus","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/blogs\/the-node\/loblolly-bay-gordonia-lasianthus-the-swamp-s-camellia-and-a-masterclass-in-place-based-design\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eRead the full plant profile, with design and field notes, on our blog.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere are trees that feel as though they were written into the land's original scripture, and Gordonia lasianthus, the loblolly bay, is one of them: a native evergreen of the Southern coastal plain whose white flowers gleam like prayers unfolding in the heat of high summer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis noble member of the tea family, Theaceae, shares kinship with the celebrated camellias and with Franklinia alatamaha, that long-lost ghost tree of Georgia's riverbanks. But unlike the mythic cousin, the loblolly bay has remained a quiet and constant presence, thriving in the moist, acidic soils of pinewoods, boggy hollows, and sandy seepage slopes from Virginia to eastern Texas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReaching a stately height in the wild, often thirty to sixty feet, the tree grows straight and tall with smooth gray bark and a narrow crown. The evergreen leaves are glossy and lance-shaped, catching light like bayonets, while the flowers, large, pure white, and golden-throated, open in succession from early summer into August. Each bloom lasts but a day, yet the steady procession brings a quiet brilliance to the woodland edge when most other native trees have long finished flowering. Early American botanists exploring the southeastern wilderness admired the tree, and William Bartram praised the grace of the loblolly bay in the wet pine savannas of Florida.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGordonia can be particular in cultivation, but rewards the careful gardener. The tree prefers moist yet well-drained sandy soils, especially along seeps and natural woodland slopes, and will not abide standing water or heavy, compacted ground, where the plant languishes or perishes. Given the right site, though, the loblolly bay grows straight and tall, flowers faithfully, and offers a taste of the native grandeur of the Southern wilderness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhotos courtesy of Will Cook and Scott Zona.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057875783795,"sku":"GORD-LASI-01G","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Gordonia-lasianthus-Scott-Zona--CC-BY-NC.jpg?v=1753130193"},{"product_id":"gymnocladus-dioicus","title":"Gymnocladus dioicus","description":"\u003cp\u003eGymnocladus dioicus, the Kentucky coffeetree, is a bold, handsome native shade tree that keeps its own unhurried calendar, among the last trees to leaf out in spring and the first to stand bare in fall. That long leafless season gave the tree a curious name, which means naked branch, and the winter silhouette of thick, blunt, sculptural limbs is a feature in itself. Hillier's great manual calls the Kentucky coffeetree one of the most handsome of all hardy trees, and few who grow one would disagree.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe foliage is the tree's glory. Doubly compound and among the largest leaves of any native tree, sometimes three feet long, they unfurl a soft pink-bronze in spring, deepen to blue-green through summer, and turn clear yellow before they fall. Greenish-white flowers open in early summer, sweetly fragrant on the female trees, for the coffeetree is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe common name comes from the fat, leathery pods that female trees carry into winter, holding large, hard seeds in a sticky pulp. Early settlers roasted and ground those seeds into a coffee substitute, which is how the tree earned its name, but a caution is essential: the raw seeds, pods, and pulp are toxic, and only roasting was said to make them safe, so the coffee story is history, not a recipe. Nothing about the tree should ever be eaten raw.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFew large trees are as tough and trouble-free as the Kentucky coffeetree, which shrugs off drought, poor soil, city air, and cold to zone 3, growing slowly into a stately shade tree of forty to sixty feet or more. Give full sun and room, and site the tree as a specimen, a shade tree for a large lawn, or a street tree where the bold texture and winter form can be admired. For a durable, characterful native that only improves with age, the coffeetree is hard to beat.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057876439155,"sku":"GYMN-DIOI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-78.jpg?v=1720138345"},{"product_id":"halesia-carolina-tetraptera","title":"Halesia carolina (tetraptera)","description":"\u003cp\u003eCarolina silverbell is one of the loveliest of the small native trees of the Southern woods, a deciduous tree of the southeastern United States that lights the spring understory with hundreds of little white bells. In April and May, before or as the leaves unfold, the branches hang thick with clusters of nodding, bell-shaped white flowers, an effect much like a flowering dogwood but softer, and just as welcome at the woodland edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe tree makes an outstanding landscape ornamental where the soil is deep, fertile, well-drained, and reliably moist, and can be used much as the common dogwood, Cornus florida, is used: as a specimen, an understory tree, or a graceful layer along a woodland margin. Gray, handsomely striped bark and clear yellow fall color extend the interest well past the spring show.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA note on names, since silverbells have shuffled through several: botanists now recognize this tree as Halesia tetraptera, and what was once called Halesia parviflora is now placed under Halesia carolina. Whatever the label on the pot, the plant is the familiar, beloved Carolina silverbell of Southern gardens, a member of the storax family, Styracaceae.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive silverbell a sheltered, part-shaded to sunny spot with acid, humus-rich, well-drained soil and steady moisture, much the ground a dogwood or a rhododendron would enjoy. The flowers are followed by curious four-winged dry fruits, the four papery wings behind the epithet tetraptera, that hang on into fall. Pair with dogwoods, native azaleas, and woodland wildflowers for a spring picture that few small trees can match.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"1 Gallon","offer_id":42961520525427,"sku":"HALE-CARO-TETR-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"1 Quart","offer_id":42961520558195,"sku":"HALE-CARO-TETR-01Q","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-79.jpg?v=1720138369"},{"product_id":"halesia-diptera","title":"Halesia diptera","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn spring, the bare gray branches of the two-wing silverbell fill with small white bells, three to six to a cluster, hanging along the year-old wood like a run of tiny lanterns. Each flower is a half-inch, four-lobed cup, and en masse they turn a modest understory tree into one of the quiet highlights of the southern woodland spring. This silverbell grows as a large multi-stemmed shrub or a small tree, rarely more than thirty feet, with an open, layered frame that lets light through to whatever grows below.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name carries two good stories. The genus honors Stephen Hales, the eighteenth-century English clergyman and scientist whose \u003cem\u003eVegetable Staticks\u003c\/em\u003e laid the groundwork for the study of how sap moves through plants; John Ellis published the name in 1759. The species epithet, \u003cem\u003ediptera\u003c\/em\u003e, is Greek for two-winged, and points to the ripe fruit: a dry, hard capsule flanked by two papery wings, where the more familiar Carolina silverbell carries four. That single detail is the surest way to tell the two apart once flowering is over. An older common name, snowdrop tree, catches the other half of the picture, the drifts of white that arrive before the leaves fully expand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo-wing silverbell belongs to the Coastal Plain of the Deep South, native from South Carolina and Florida west to eastern Texas, where the tree threads the banks of streams and the lower slopes of ravines in moist, humus-rich, acid soil. Bees work the spring bells for nectar and pollen, and squirrels and other wildlife take the green fruit before the wings dry and the capsule hardens. Though rooted in the warm South, this silverbell proves hardy well to the north, taking cold a zone or two beyond the native range.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, treat the two-wing silverbell as a spring-flowering understory tree for a woodland edge, a shaded border, or a spot beside a path where the hanging bells can be looked up into from below. The tree asks for the same cool, moist, well-drained, acid ground that suits dogwoods, azaleas, and rhododendrons, so plant them together for a native spring picture, and avoid high-pH soils, which the roots resent. A clean butter-yellow fall color follows the flowers, giving a second, quieter season before the leaves drop.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057877225587,"sku":"HALE-DIPT-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-80.jpg?v=1720138373"},{"product_id":"halesia-diptera-var-magniflora","title":"Halesia diptera var. magniflora","description":"\u003cp\u003eOf all the silverbells, this is the one plant hunters remember. \u003cem\u003eHalesia diptera\u003c\/em\u003e var. \u003cem\u003emagniflora\u003c\/em\u003e is the large-flowered form of the two-wing silverbell, and the difference is not subtle: the white, bell-shaped flowers run half again larger than the type, sometimes an inch and more across, with the lobes cut so deeply that each bloom flares open like a little white star rather than a closed bell. In full flower, before the leaves are fully out, the branches all but vanish beneath them, and a mature specimen becomes a cloud of white in the April woods.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe variety name says exactly what the eye already knows. \u003cem\u003eMagniflora\u003c\/em\u003e is Latin for large-flowered, a fitting note under a genus named for Stephen Hales, the eighteenth-century scientist who pioneered the study of how water moves through plants, and a species named \u003cem\u003ediptera\u003c\/em\u003e, two-winged, for the pair of papery wings on the dry ripe fruit. Botanically this is still a two-wing silverbell; horticulturally the plant is the aristocrat of the group, the form that connoisseurs of native trees seek out and seldom find offered.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe wild range is narrow. This large-flowered variety grows native in a limited stretch of the Florida Panhandle and the neighboring Gulf Coast, along shaded bluffs and rich, moist ravines near the Apalachicola and other blackwater rivers, exactly the kind of cool, humus-rich, acid ground that produces so many of the region's botanical treasures. Scarcity in the wild is part of why the tree is rarely available in the trade, and part of why a garden-grown plant is worth the search.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive this silverbell a semi-shaded, moist but well-drained site, and treat the tree as a spring-flowering understory specimen for a woodland edge, a shaded border, or a courtyard where the oversized bells can be looked up into from below. Plant among dogwoods, azaleas, rhododendrons, and ferns that share the same taste for cool, acid soil, shelter the crown from harsh afternoon sun in the Deep South, and let a yellow fall color close a season that began with the finest flowers the silverbells can offer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057877291123,"sku":"HALE-DIPT-MAGN-01G","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1363.jpg?v=1720138377"},{"product_id":"ilex-opaca-female-selected-red","title":"Ilex opaca (female) 'Selected Red'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex opaca, the American holly, is the classic evergreen holly of eastern woods, a medium tree with tough, spine-edged, leathery leaves and the bright red berries that have meant Christmas for generations. 'Selected Red' is one of the good ones, a female clone Woodlanders propagated from a group of hollies planted many years ago in Aiken, South Carolina, chosen for very good foliage and an abundant crop of bright red fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat sets this clone apart is the form. 'Selected Red' grows into a dense, pyramidal tree with a slight, graceful weep to the branches, a softer silhouette than the stiff pyramids of many American hollies, and the habit is close enough to the old variety 'Croonenburg' that the two may be one and the same. Dense to the base and evergreen, the tree reads as a solid green cone all year, then lights up with red in fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name opaca means dull or opaque, for the matte, un-lacquered surface of the American holly leaf, which sets the species apart from the glossy Asian and English hollies. Native across the eastern United States, from Massachusetts to Florida and west to Texas, American holly grows on well-drained woodland soils and ranks among the most widely planted native evergreens, valued for form, winter berries, and the birds the fruit feeds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a female, 'Selected Red' needs a male American holly in range to set that heavy red crop, so pair the tree with a pollinizer such as 'Jersey Knight' nearby. Slow and long-lived, the plant makes a fine specimen, a tall evergreen screen, or a woodland-edge anchor, in full sun to part shade and moist, acidic, well-drained soil. The berried branches are a natural for holiday greenery, and the winter fruit feeds songbirds when little else is left.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890857075,"sku":"ILEX-OPAC-FEMA-SELE-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-105.jpg?v=1720138803"},{"product_id":"ilex-opaca-fallaw","title":"Ilex opaca 'Fallaw'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex opaca, the American holly, is the classic evergreen holly of the eastern woods, a medium-size tree with tough, leathery, spine-edged leaves and, on female trees, the bright berries that have meant Christmas for generations. 'Fallaw' keeps the familiar form but changes the color of the fruit: where the wild tree ripens red, this selection hangs clear amber-yellow berries, an uncommon and cheerful contrast against the dark evergreen foliage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name opaca means dull or opaque, a nod to the matte, un-glossy surface of the American holly's leaf, which sets the species apart from the lacquered Asian and English hollies. Native across the eastern United States, from Massachusetts to Florida and west to Texas, the tree grows on well-drained woodland soils and has long been one of the most widely planted native evergreens, valued for dense form, winter berries, and the wildlife the fruit feeds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeedling American hollies vary enormously, in leaf, in form, and in fruit, so gardeners have long relied on named clones for the best plants, and 'Fallaw' is a good one. This yellow-fruited selection was found many years ago on the Fallaw farm near Batesburg, South Carolina, and propagated to keep the amber-berried trait true. As a female clone, the plant needs a male American holly in range to set that unusual crop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSlow and long-lived, 'Fallaw' builds into a fine pyramidal specimen for a lawn, a woodland edge, or a tall evergreen screen, and the yellow berries make a memorable change in a holiday arrangement. Give the tree full sun to part shade and moist, acidic, well-drained soil, and set a male holly nearby for fruit. Birds take the berries through winter, so a stand does double duty as evergreen structure and a wildlife feeder.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057891905651,"sku":"ILE-OPAC-FALL-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-103.jpg?v=1720138828"},{"product_id":"ilex-x-attenuata-alagold","title":"Ilex x attenuata 'Alagold'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Foster hollies are among the most planted evergreens in the South, a group of hybrids between the native dahoon, Ilex cassine, and the native American holly, Ilex opaca, raised at Foster Nursery in northern Alabama. They carry narrow, dark, lightly spined leaves on a neat pyramidal frame and fruit heavily in red. 'Alagold' is the exception in color: a yellow-berried seedling of Foster number two, hanging clear amber-gold fruit each winter against dark olive-green foliage, on the same dependable, upright, tree-like holly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYellow-fruited hollies have a long hold on collectors, prized for the way the gold reads warm where red reads bright, and for the surprise of a holly that breaks the Christmas-card expectation. 'Alagold' keeps all the working virtues of a Foster holly, the glossy evergreen density, the wildlife value, the clean pyramidal outline, and simply trades scarlet for amber. Songbirds take the fruit through winter, though, as with all hollies, the berries are for the birds and not for people, being mildly toxic if eaten.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFoster hollies came out of Foster Nursery as chance hybrids of two Southeastern natives, and 'Alagold' arose as a yellow-berried seedling within that line. The Foster clones are notably self-fruitful, setting a good crop with no mate in sight, though a male of either parent species nearby only improves the show. That reliability, and the amber fruit, make the plant an easy, distinctive evergreen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive 'Alagold' room to become a small tree, twenty feet and more in time, and use the upright pyramid as a specimen, a tall evergreen screen, or a corner anchor where the gold berries can glow against dark foliage or a winter sky. The color pairs beautifully with red-berried hollies for a two-tone winter planting, and the lacquered, fruited branches cut well for holiday greenery. Full sun to part shade and moist, well-drained, acidic soil suit the plant best.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057895051379,"sku":"ILE-ATTE-ALAG-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1004.jpg?v=1720138894"},{"product_id":"juglans-nigra","title":"Juglans nigra","description":"\u003cp\u003eJuglans nigra, the eastern black walnut, is one of the great trees of eastern North America, a towering, long-lived hardwood native from the Appalachians and Midwest to the Mississippi Valley, most at home in deep, rich, moist but well-drained soils along river bottoms and fertile uplands. Large pinnate leaves cast a broad, airy shade in summer, leaf out late in spring, and drop early in fall to a soft gold, making way for the tree's most famous gift, the crop of hard-shelled nuts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose nuts, held in thick green husks, carry rich, oily kernels with a deep, distinctive flavor, a staple of traditional Southern and Appalachian baking and the essential note behind black walnut cake and brownies. The crop feeds wildlife as much as people: squirrels, turkeys, and other woodland creatures depend on the mast. The husks and bark also gave the eastern tribes and later settlers a lasting brown and black dye, and an ink that stains anything it touches.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlack walnut holds a long place in traditional medicine, spanning Native American and European folk practice. The Cherokee chewed the bark for toothache and brewed it as a mild laxative tea, and the green hulls, rich in juglone and tannins, were used as an astringent wash and a folk antifungal and antiparasitic, a use that continues in herbal traditions today. Modern study confirms that juglone has antimicrobial activity, though rigorous clinical evidence is limited. This is traditional-use and early-research information, shared for interest only, and not medical advice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dark, fine-grained heartwood is among the most valuable of all American hardwoods, long prized for furniture, cabinetry, gunstocks, and veneer, so that to plant a black walnut is to grow a living heirloom for generations to come. In the landscape the tree is best on large properties, reaching fifty to eighty feet and sometimes more, a majestic shade tree and orchard specimen. Site with care: the roots, leaves, and hulls release juglone, a natural compound that inhibits many plants within the root zone, so keep sensitive species such as tomatoes, azaleas, and rhododendrons well clear.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057902850163,"sku":"JUGL-NIGR-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-125.jpg?v=1720139131"},{"product_id":"koelreuteria-bipinnata","title":"Koelreuteria bipinnata","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Chinese flame tree is a fast-growing, upright ornamental of coarse, handsome structure, casting medium shade and broadening with age into a rounded crown of twenty to forty feet. A member of the soapberry family (Sapindaceae) native to southern China, Koelreuteria bipinnata carries large, twice-pinnate compound leaves that give the canopy a light, ferny texture through the growing season before turning soft yellow in fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe performance comes in two acts. In late summer, when most trees have finished, the branches raise broad panicles of small, bright yellow flowers, a welcome burst of color and a valuable late source of nectar for bees and butterflies. These are followed by the real showstopper: large clusters of papery, lantern-like seed pods that open pink, salmon, and rose before fading to bronze, and that second flush of color is the source of the common name, flame tree. The pods hang on well into fall, and often into winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLong grown across the American South yet still surprisingly little planted, the Chinese flame tree is tough where many ornamentals struggle, shrugging off heat, drought, urban pollution, and compacted soil once established. The papery pods do drop in quantity, so a lawn or bed setting suits the tree better than a spot over a patio or a drive. Give full sun and well-drained ground, and expect a moderate pace of a foot or two of growth each year.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, use this flame tree as a medium shade or specimen tree for a lawn, a wide border, or a street-side planting where the late flowers and glowing pods can be enjoyed against open sky. The airy foliage pairs well with lower shrubs and perennials that carry the earlier season, letting the tree take a turn in the quieter weeks of late summer and fall. Photos courtesy of Jim Robbins.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057906585715,"sku":"KOEL-BIPI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/KoelreuteriabipinnataWoodlanders1.jpg?v=1737215740"},{"product_id":"koelreuteria-paniculata","title":"Koelreuteria paniculata","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe goldenrain tree is a deciduous member of the soapberry family (Sapindaceae), native to China and Korea and long cultivated across eastern Asia. Growing to a rounded twenty-five to thirty-five feet, the tree carries handsome pinnate compound leaves that cast a light, dappled shade, and in early to midsummer, later toward the north, the branches hang with large, airy panicles of small golden-yellow flowers, a soft rain of gold across the crown and the source of the common name goldenrain tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers give way to one of the most distinctive fruits in cultivation: papery, three-sided, lantern-like capsules that flush rose and bronze as they ripen and hold on for weeks, each enclosing hard, round black seeds once strung as beads and rosaries. The goldenrain tree carries a deep cultural history in China, where the species stood among the official memorial trees of the Zhou dynasty, planted at the tombs of scholars, and where the flowers have long yielded a clear yellow dye.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat heritage extends into traditional Chinese medicine, where the flowers were prepared as an ophthalmic remedy for inflamed and watering eyes and carried a reputation as an antioxidant tonic. Modern laboratory work has taken some interest in the plant's flavonoids, though rigorous clinical study remains limited. This note belongs to the tree's history and is offered for interest only, not as medical advice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, the goldenrain tree is a tough, adaptable, and forgiving small shade tree for a lawn, a courtyard, an urban street, or an open border, taking full sun and a wide range of soils from sand to clay with equal grace. The modest size and manageable canopy suit residential and city plantings alike, and the summer gold and autumn lanterns give two full seasons of interest. Note that the tree can self-sow freely in warm climates, so site where seedlings are easy to manage.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057906651251,"sku":"KOEL-PANI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1375.jpg?v=1720139214"},{"product_id":"koelreuteria-paniculata-woodlanders-low-form","title":"Koelreuteria paniculata 'Woodlanders Low Form'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Woodlanders Low Form' is a rare, shrubby selection of the goldenrain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata), a compact form that trades the usual rounded canopy for a low, dense frame of ten to twelve feet. The elegant, pinnate compound leaves and the showy summer panicles of small, bright yellow flowers are all present, simply gathered into a modest footprint that suits a small garden far better than the full species.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe backstory is half the charm. This low form was originally collected at the Chollipo Arboretum in Korea, where the plants grew near coastal beaches, and was introduced to the United States by Woodlanders years ago. The journey did not end there: David Geiger later found a specimen labeled 'Woodlanders Low Form' at the Cornell Arboretum in New York, and from there seed traveled to Massachusetts and eventually back to the Woodlanders garden, proof that a truly special plant tends to find the way home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe same selection is sometimes circulated under the name 'Beachmaster', a nod to those Korean coastal origins, but Woodlanders keeps the older name 'Woodlanders Low Form' in honor of the unusual history and the coastal toughness the plants carry. Like the species, the goldenrain tree has long been valued in China both for a clear yellow dye drawn from the flowers and for a place in traditional medicine, a lineage this compact form quietly shares.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, 'Woodlanders Low Form' is well suited to a small garden, an urban courtyard, a large container, or a collector's bed, a rare ornamental with beauty, history, and real adaptability in one modest package. Give full sun and well-drained soil of almost any texture, and site where the summer flowers and the papery, rose-tinted lantern pods that follow can be enjoyed at close range. Coastal gardeners will especially appreciate the salt-edged resilience bred into these plants.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057906782323,"sku":"KOEL-PANI-WOOD-LOW-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Koelreuteria_paniculata_Woodlanders_Low_Form_1.jpg?v=1747856177"},{"product_id":"lagerstroemia-fauriei","title":"Lagerstroemia fauriei","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmong crape myrtles, Lagerstroemia fauriei is the aristocrat grown as much for bark as for bloom. A small, multi-stemmed, deciduous tree from Yakushima Island in southern Japan, first brought to botanical attention in the 1950s, the species reaches a graceful twenty-five to thirty-five feet with a rounded, vase-shaped crown. The summer flowers are white, carried in airy terminal panicles that are smaller and more delicate than the heavy trusses of the familiar Lagerstroemia indica.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe real glory arrives on the trunks. As the tree matures, the smooth bark exfoliates in thin flakes to reveal a glowing patchwork of cinnamon, copper, and mahogany, a feature that only deepens with age and turns the winter garden into a quiet spectacle. Set where low sun can catch the trunks, a well-grown specimen earns a place for the bark alone, flowers or no flowers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond beauty, Lagerstroemia fauriei carries real horticultural importance. Prized for strong resistance to the powdery mildew that plagues older crape myrtles, the species became a cornerstone of Dr. Donald Egolf's breeding program at the U.S. National Arboretum, where crosses with Lagerstroemia indica produced the celebrated National Arboretum hybrids, among them the enduringly popular 'Natchez'. Woodlanders may well have been the first nursery to offer Lagerstroemia fauriei to the American gardening public.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, give this crape myrtle an open, sunny site with well-drained soil and room for the multiple trunks to spread and show, as a lawn specimen, a patio tree, or an anchor at the corner of a bed. The white summer flowers, the disease resistance, and above all the copper bark reward a spot where the tree can be seen from every side and enjoyed through all four seasons. Underplant lightly, if at all, so nothing hides the trunks.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057907503219,"sku":"LAGE-FAUR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-127.jpg?v=1720139230"},{"product_id":"lithocarpus-henryi","title":"Lithocarpus henryi","description":"\u003cp\u003eLithocarpus henryi, the Henry tanoak, is an evergreen cousin of the oaks that few gardeners have met. Native to the mountain forests of central China, the tree carries long, narrow, pointed leaves of glossy deep green and builds, in time, a dense, rounded evergreen crown of fifteen to twenty-five feet. Among a genus of mostly tender species, this one ranks as the hardiest, which is what makes the Henry tanoak worth seeking out for milder temperate gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe tanoaks belong to the beech and oak family, Fagaceae, and sit close to the true oaks without being of them. The genus name Lithocarpus means stone fruit, from the Greek for stone and fruit, a nod to the large, hard, woody acorns; unlike the nodding catkins of an oak, the flowers stand upright in stiff, chestnut-like spikes. The epithet henryi honors Augustine Henry, the Irish-born plant collector whose late nineteenth-century explorations opened much of the flora of central China to Western gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn summer the tree hangs out creamy, upright catkins with the heavy scent of the chestnuts to which the family is kin, followed by large, hard acorns held in sparse racemes and cupped in woody scales. The new growth flushes handsomely before hardening to deep green, and the leathery leaves keep their polish through winter, giving the tree a substantial, year-round presence that few broadleaf evergreens of this hardiness can match.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive the Henry tanoak a sunny to lightly shaded position and fertile, well-drained soil, and allow room for the crown to fill out as a specimen, an evergreen screen, or a distinctive shade tree for a collector's garden. Patience helps, since tanoaks settle in at a measured pace, but the reward is a rare and dignified evergreen that lends structure and quiet interest in every season. The acorns, in time, feed birds and small mammals, a bonus for a wildlife-minded garden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057912778867,"sku":"LITH-HENR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"lithocarpus-edulis-variegata","title":"Lithocarpus edulis 'Variegata'","description":"\u003cp\u003eA broadleaf evergreen with a story, this variegated tanbark oak came into the country from Japan through the late Dr. Fred Meyer of the United States National Arboretum, a botanist and tireless plant explorer, and was almost certainly first offered to American gardeners by Woodlanders. The draw is the foliage: dense, leathery, glossy leaves, each dark green blade split by an irregular central streak of gold and cream, so that a whole tree seems lit from within. Plant Delights later distributed the same selection under the name 'Starburst,' and both names point to this one bright-leaved plant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLithocarpus is the genus of stone oaks, or tanbark oaks, close kin to the true oaks in Fagaceae but set apart by stiff, upright flower spikes rather than the dangling catkins of Quercus, and by acorns so hard-shelled they gave the genus its name, from the Greek for stone fruit. The species epithet, edulis, means edible, and records a genuine use: in Japan the acorns of this tree, mateba-shii, have long been gathered for food, roasted and ground after leaching away the tannins that make so many acorns bitter. The bark, like that of the other tanbark oaks, once fed the leather-tanning trade with its tannins.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLeft to grow, Lithocarpus edulis makes a rounded evergreen tree of twenty-five to thirty-five feet, slow and deliberate in youth and dense with age, bearing creamy upright flower spikes in early summer and, in autumn, the hard little acorns. The variegated form is grown for leaf rather than crop, but a mature specimen still flowers and fruits. Hardy through USDA zones 7 to 9 and tolerant of coastal wind and city air, the tree serves as a luminous evergreen screen, a specimen to light a shaded corner, or a slow-building anchor where a gardener wants substance that holds all winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is an old-fashioned generosity to a tree like this, an evergreen that feeds wildlife, once fed people, and carries a variegation striking enough to stop a visitor mid-path. Give the tanbark oak deep, well-drained soil and an open spot with room to spread, full sun to part shade, and a little shelter while young. Growers report that deer leave the foliage alone, one more argument for a plant that asks little and offers a great deal, including a direct link to the exploring botanists who once carried such things home.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057913008243,"sku":"LITH-EDUL-VARI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Lithocarpusedulis_Variegata.jpg?v=1784327238"},{"product_id":"machilus-thunbergii","title":"Machilus thunbergii","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Lauraceae is an underappreciated family. Its members include cinnamon, camphor, bay laurel, and the avocado, which gives you some sense of the range of things the family has contributed to human civilization. \u003cem\u003eMachilus thunbergii\u003c\/em\u003e is another member in good standing, though these trees arrive in the Western garden with considerably less fanfare than their relatives. In East Asia they are well known: a coastal evergreen tree native to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, and Vietnam, valued for timber, planted as a street tree, and the source of makko, a powder derived from the bark and used for centuries to bind incense and, in a more practical application, to repel mosquitoes. The bark also has a history in traditional medicine. Here, in other words, is a tree that has been useful to people for a very long time, which is not a bad thing for a plant to be.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the Western garden the appeal is different. The foliage is the primary draw: large, glossy, dark green leaves with a slightly glaucous underside that catch light differently depending on how you stand relative to them. New growth emerges in shades of copper and bronze before settling into the deep green of maturity, giving the canopy a layered seasonal interest that most broadleaf evergreens never manage. The form is upright and somewhat architectural, with flattened sprays of branches that give the tree a composed, deliberate quality in the landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders grows this from seed sourced from a tree of Korean origin growing in George Mitchell's garden here in Aiken, South Carolina, where the tree has proven completely hardy. That provenance matters: \u003cem\u003eMachilus thunbergii\u003c\/em\u003e is a coastal plant, and hardiness varies significantly by origin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA note on taxonomy, since taxonomists cannot resist: the genus \u003cem\u003eMachilus\u003c\/em\u003e has been periodically absorbed into \u003cem\u003ePersea\u003c\/em\u003e by those who find the distinction botanically indistinct, and periodically restored by those who disagree. The argument continues. We list these trees as \u003cem\u003eMachilus\u003c\/em\u003e here because that is how serious gardeners know them, and because taking sides in genus-level disputes is above our pay grade.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057917825139,"sku":"MACH-THUN-01G","price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Machilusthunbergiibloom.png?v=1739389651"},{"product_id":"magnolia-acuminata","title":"Magnolia acuminata","description":"\u003cp\u003eMagnolia acuminata, the cucumbertree, is the giant of the native magnolias and the only one hardy far into the North. A deciduous forest tree of the eastern United States, most majestic in the southern Appalachians, the cucumbertree can rise seventy to ninety feet into a broad, rounded canopy, valued as a fast-growing, exceptionally hardy shade tree for parks and large lawns.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe odd common name comes from the young fruit: the knobby, elongated seed cones look, when green and unripe, remarkably like small cucumbers, before ripening to a startling pink-red and splitting to drop scarlet seeds. The tulip-shaped spring flowers are the quiet ones of the genus, greenish yellow and held high among the leaves, easy to miss, yet those same flowers carry the yellow pigment that breeders have used to create the celebrated yellow magnolias like 'Elizabeth' and 'Butterflies'. The leaves are large, six to eight inches long, with the tapered tip the epithet acuminata describes, and the genus itself honors Pierre Magnol, the seventeenth-century French botanist of Montpellier.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is a working tree as much as an ornamental one. The pale, straight-grained wood resembles that of the related tulip tree, Liriodendron, and has long been cut and sold with it as yellow poplar. Nurseries and plant breeders prize the cucumbertree twice over: as a tough rootstock onto which choicer magnolias are grafted, and as the cold-hardy, yellow-flowered parent behind many modern hybrids. Native peoples and early settlers steeped the aromatic bark as a folk tonic, one of the tree's quieter historical uses.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive the cucumbertree room, because this is a tree for the long view and the large space: a park, a big lawn, a woodland edge, where the massive trunk and high canopy can develop over generations. Full sun to part shade and deep, rich, well-drained soil suit the tree best, and the fast early growth rewards patience quickly. Site the cucumbertree as a stately shade tree and a piece of American forest heritage, and leave the fallen pink fruit for the birds.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057918382195,"sku":"MAGN-ACUM-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-142.jpg?v=1720139489"},{"product_id":"magnolia-virginiana-var-australis","title":"Magnolia virginiana var. australis","description":"\u003cp\u003eMagnolia virginiana, the sweetbay magnolia, has long been a tree of distinction in the American landscape, ranging from the cool wetlands of Massachusetts to the Gulf Coast. Across that span the species wears two very different guises. In the northern states the sweetbay is a smaller, often shrubby tree that drops its leaves in winter; in the Deep South the species reaches fullest expression as Magnolia virginiana var. australis, the evergreen southern sweetbay, a large and enduring tree of great grace.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis southern form, native to the coastal plain from the Carolinas through Florida and west to Texas, is one of the most ornamental of the native magnolias. The lustrous, evergreen foliage gives the tree a presence unmatched by the northern kin, glossy dark green above and silvered beneath. In summer come fragrant, creamy-white flowers that open in slow succession, each carrying the clean lemon perfume that William Bartram praised as he wandered the southern woods, blooms of understated elegance, never gaudy and always refined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe evergreen sweetbay is a tree of wetlands and bottomlands, at home along streams, swamps, and coastal hammocks, yet in gardens the tree proves wonderfully adaptable, flourishing wherever the soil stays moist, acidic, and reasonably drained. A tolerance for periodic flooding, paired with the evergreen beauty, makes the southern sweetbay invaluable where a garden needs both native resilience and year-round green.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnlike the shrubby northern variety, var. australis can rise to true tree stature, sometimes past sixty feet, with a straight trunk and an airy crown. The tree lends itself to use as a shade tree, a specimen, or a native alternative to exotic evergreens, especially in southern landscapes where gardeners want plants with cultural and ecological integrity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor the gardener who plants one, the southern sweetbay offers not only fragrance and beauty but a tie to the Deep South's natural heritage, a tree that has stood along swamps, river margins, and old homesteads for centuries and still marks the seasons with quiet constancy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057918840947,"sku":"MAGN-VIRG-AUST-01G","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Magnoliavirginianavar.australisSonniaHill_759f06bb-e4c4-4841-82d1-c3c83f133e1f.jpg?v=1755938694"},{"product_id":"magnolia-virginiana-var-virginiana","title":"Magnolia virginiana var. virginiana","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere is something quietly instructive about the range of \u003cem\u003eMagnolia virginiana\u003c\/em\u003e. The species runs from the cold, swampy woods of Gloucester, Massachusetts, where a small population clings to the northern edge of the natural territory, all the way down to the Gulf Coast of Texas, a span of climate and geography that would seem to demand two entirely different plants. In the North the sweetbay obliges by turning deciduous, multi-stemmed, and compact, staying modest in deference to the winters. In the South the same species becomes something else entirely, a tall, evergreen tree of real stature. Botanists eventually gave the northern form a name of its own, \u003cem\u003evar. virginiana\u003c\/em\u003e, and that is what Woodlanders grows here, raised from seed collected at the Massachusetts limit of the range.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sweetbay carries a distinction few American trees can claim: the honor of being the first magnolia known to European gardens. In 1688 the missionary and naturalist John Banister sent a plant from Virginia to Henry Compton, the Bishop of London, and the tree took root in cultivation abroad before the genus \u003cem\u003eMagnolia\u003c\/em\u003e even had a name, which Charles Plumier would coin only later from a species on Martinique. More than three centuries on, the sweetbay remains as much a garden treasure as a botanical footnote.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe flowers arrive in early summer, and then keep arriving, since the sweetbay blooms in succession over several weeks rather than all at once, so the fragrance becomes a sustained presence rather than a single event. The blooms are modest in size, two to three inches across, creamy white, and carry a lemon-cream scent that travels surprisingly far on warm air. The undersides of the leaves are a glaucous, chalky white that catches light differently from the glossy dark green above, so in a breeze the whole canopy seems to shimmer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sweetbay also has a long history of use. Native Americans and colonial settlers steeped the aromatic bark to bring down fevers and ease rheumatism, and turned the fruit to coughs and chest complaints, while beavers gnaw the wood so readily that the old names beaver tree and castorwood stuck. In the garden the tree earns a place other magnolias would refuse: tolerant of wet soils, boggy ground, and heavy clay, yet adaptable to ordinary garden conditions once established. In the North the sweetbay stays compact and shrubby; in warmer zones the same tree pushes toward a small multi-stemmed specimen. Either way the fragrance alone makes the case.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057918972019,"sku":"MAGN-VIRG-VAR-VIRG-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-154.jpg?v=1720139500"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/canopy-trees.oembed?page=6","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}