The plants you grow for your grandchildren. Canopy trees are the garden's largest and longest-lived residents, the shade-throwers and skyline-makers that set the scale of everything planted beneath them.
There is something quietly instructive about the range of Magnolia virginiana. 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, var. virginiana, and that is what Woodlanders grows here, raised from seed collected at the Massachusetts limit of the range.
Hardiness
Zones 5–9
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
20–40 ft.
Spread
15–20 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Tree
Traditional use
respiratory support, pain relief, general wellness
Oxydendrum arboreum, the sourwood, is one of the loveliest and most distinctive trees of the Eastern American woods, and among the very last to flower each year. The name tells the story twice over: Oxydendrum joins the Greek oxys, sour or sharp, and dendron, tree, while the common name echoes the same tang, for the leaves, twigs, and bark all taste sourly of oxalic acid when chewed. A member of the heath family alongside azaleas, rhododendrons, and blueberries, sourwood stands alone as the sole species in the genus, native to well-drained, acid woodland soils from southern Pennsylvania to the Florida panhandle and west toward Louisiana, most abundant in the lower Appalachians.
Hardiness
Zones 5–9
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
30–50 ft.
Spread
15–25 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Tree
Traditional use
digestive health, respiratory support, general wellness
This Phoebe is a broadleaf evergreen tree in the laurel family, Lauraceae, and a relative of the redbay and the avocado in the genus Persea. The genus Phoebe gathers more than fifty species of evergreen trees and shrubs across subtropical and tropical Asia, long known in China as nanmu and prized for hard, fine-textured, aromatic timber used in fine furniture and building since ancient times.
Prunus caroliniana, the Carolina cherry laurel, is a fast, dense broadleaf evergreen native to the coastal plain of the southeastern United States, from North Carolina to Texas. The glossy, deep green, finely toothed leaves and tight, upright habit make the tree one of the South's most useful evergreen screens, and the crushed foliage carries the sharp almond, maraschino-cherry scent that marks the genus.
Prunus umbellata, the flatwoods plum, is a picturesque small deciduous tree native to well-drained soils across the southeastern United States. Where the Chickasaw plum forms suckering thickets, the flatwoods plum grows as a single, gnarled, small tree with rough, dark bark and a wide, open crown, an old-field and fence-row character that reads as quietly beautiful in age.
Few native trees announce themselves as cheerfully as Sassafras albidum, whose leaves come in three shapes on the same branch: an unlobed oval, a two-lobed mitten, and a three-lobed silhouette like a splayed hand. A member of the laurel family, Lauraceae, and kin to bay, cinnamon, and spicebush, sassafras carries aromatic oils in every part, so that a snapped twig or crushed leaf releases a warm, root-beer sweetness. The common name traces back through Spanish to the colonial Southeast, where the tree was among the first American plants shipped to Europe as a marketable medicine.
Styrax obassia, the fragrant snowbell, is the bold-leaved cousin of the more familiar Japanese snowbell, a small deciduous tree from the mountain woodlands of Japan, Korea, and China. Where Styrax japonicus hides small bells beneath fine, layered branches, the fragrant snowbell wears large, rounded, almost tropical leaves up to eight inches across, and hangs long, drooping chains of white, bell-shaped flowers that carry a sweet perfume through the late-spring garden.
American basswood is one of the great shade and honey trees of eastern North America, a fast, stately deciduous tree with large, heart-shaped, softly toothed leaves and a broad, rounded, generous crown. Tilia americana has been cherished by Indigenous peoples, European settlers, and naturalists alike, and goes by a string of names: linden, bee tree, and lime, though the tree is no relation to the citrus lime. In late spring and early summer, hanging clusters of pale yellow, sweetly fragrant flowers open and hum with bees.
Hardiness
Zones 3–8
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
60–80 ft.
Spread
20–30 ft.
Bloom
Yellow
Plant type
Tree
Traditional use
mental & emotional well-being, respiratory support, digestive health
