Plants that ask for water while they root, then fend for themselves. Chosen for gardens on sand, slope, or full baking sun, these are the tough, sun-loving plants that flower hardest in the heat and shrug off a dry August once established.
Clinopodium georgianum is a low, aromatic shrublet of the mint family, prized for highly scented foliage and clouds of pinkish-lavender flowers in late summer and fall, when much of the garden is winding down. Georgia savory makes a fine edging or front-of-border plant for sunny or lightly shaded spots with good drainage, and unlike most of the tribe, this southern native will grow in heavier soils as well as sand.
Myrcianthes fragrans is a member of the myrtle family native to the hammocks and coastal scrub of Florida and the Caribbean, the same botanical neighborhood as guava and allspice, which says something about the family character and the quality of the fragrance involved. Crush a leaf and the scent is immediate and specific: nutmeg with a citrus edge, clean and resinous in a way that makes the plant worth encountering even out of flower. The tiny, deep green leaves hold the aromatic oils responsible, and keep that quality year-round.
Oleander, Nerium oleander, is the great sun-loving evergreen of the Mediterranean, grown since antiquity for a long summer of bloom, with dark green, leathery, lance-shaped leaves in whorls of three along long, sparingly branched stems. 'Hardy Pink' is one of the cold-tougher selections, carrying showy, lightly fragrant clusters of clear rose-pink flowers from late spring well into fall.
Rosemary is a timeless classic in both the garden and the kitchen, an aromatic evergreen shrub of the sun-baked Mediterranean coast, so distinctive that botanists long kept rosemary in a genus apart, Rosmarinus officinalis, before recent study moved the herb into the sages as Salvia rosmarinus. The old genus name means dew of the sea, for the plant's love of bright, salt-swept coastal hillsides. Slender, needle-like, deep green leaves clothe the woody stems the year round, and soft blue flowers open along them from winter into spring.
Hardiness
Zones 7–10
Light
Full Sun
Height
2–4 ft.
Spread
2–3 ft.
Bloom
Blue
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
digestive health, mental & emotional well-being, general wellness, topical applications
Buddleia alternifolia, the fountain or alternate-leaf butterfly bush, stands apart from the usual butterfly-bush crowd. A deciduous shrub native to northwestern China, the fountain butterfly bush is the most cold-hardy of the genus, and is grown above all for a weeping form and an early-season flood of fragrant, lavender-purple bloom.
A yellow-flowered butterfly bush, Buddleia x weyeriana 'Honeycomb' is a vigorous hybrid of Buddleia globosa and Buddleia davidii that the late Dr. Michael Dirr judged better than the older 'Sungold'. The plant came to Dirr from Crathes Castle Garden in Scotland, bought as the variety 'E.H. Wilson' but proving to be a very different and superior yellow butterfly bush, named 'Honeycomb' and a standout in Georgia trials, flowering as late as Thanksgiving.
Buddleja salviifolia, the sage-leaf butterfly bush, is a medium to large evergreen shrub from the sun-soaked hillsides of South Africa, and despite the exotic origin the plant has proven remarkably hardy in southeastern gardens, coming through winters at the University of Georgia's Athens trials with quiet resilience.
Hardiness
Zones 7–9
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
10–12 ft.
Spread
8–10 ft.
Bloom
Purple
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
respiratory support, digestive health, topical applications, general wellness
Calycanthus floridus 'Athens', also circulated under the name 'Katherine', is a yellow-flowered selection of the Eastern sweetshrub, a deciduous native of the Southeastern woodlands long grown for fragrance, adaptability, and strange, many-tepaled flowers. Where the wild plant blooms a deep maroon, 'Athens' opens soft, buttery yellow, an unexpected and elegant turn on a familiar shrub.
Named for Walter Tennyson Swingle, the pioneering citrus breeder who spent his career crossing tender oranges with the iron-hardy trifoliate orange, the Swingle citrumelo is among the toughest citrus hybrids ever raised. A cross of grapefruit, Citrus paradisi, and trifoliate orange, Poncirus trifoliata, this vigorous, thorny, semi-evergreen shrub or small tree carries fragrant white citrus blossoms in spring, followed by pear-shaped yellow fruits about the size of a large orange.
US-942 began life as a rootstock, bred by the USDA and released in 2010 after years of Florida field trials, a careful cross of the Sunki mandarin and the curious Flying Dragon form of trifoliate orange, Poncirus trifoliata. As a rootstock the record is stellar: compact, productive trees, strong resistance to Phytophthora and tristeza virus, and better tolerance of citrus greening than most, which is why growers across the citrus belt have come to trust the number.
The conradinas are dense, aromatic, low shrubs of the mint family, dressed in small, usually needle-like green or gray leaves and hung with little pale purple flowers. Six or seven species grow wild in the southern United States, most of them in Florida on sand or very sandy soil, and all but this one (and one possibly new species) are federally listed as threatened or endangered. Conradina canescens is the common, widespread member of the clan, a somewhat variable plant of the Gulf Coast dunes of northwest Florida and adjacent Alabama.
Manfreda maculosa carries the rugged beauty of the American Southwest into the garden. Known by a string of evocative names, Texas tuberose, spice lily, and rattlesnake agave, this striking plant hails from the arid country of Texas and northern Mexico, where the spotted leaves and tall, aromatic flower stalks have caught the eye of gardeners and naturalists for generations.
Morella pumila 'Willow Leaf' is a distinctive, fine-leaved form of the native dwarf waxmyrtle, selected for narrow, elongated, willow-like leaves that give the low shrub an unusually elegant, airy texture rarely seen in the species. Like the wild plant, this is a low, spreading, colony-forming evergreen of the fire-adapted pinelands of the southeastern United States, once listed as Myrica pusilla and now placed in the genus Morella.
Oleander, Nerium oleander, is a large, sun-loving evergreen shrub of the Mediterranean, grown since antiquity for a long, generous summer of bloom. Dark green, leathery, lance-shaped leaves ride in whorls of three along the long, sparingly branched stems, and from late spring well into fall the branch tips carry showy, lightly fragrant flower clusters. 'Double Pink' bears fully double, rose-like flowers in a soft, warm pink.
The hardiest yellow oleander in cultivation, and one of the very few oleanders that come in yellow at all. Of the four hundred and more named cultivars of Nerium oleander, the genus runs naturally to white, pink, and red; yellow is the aberration, and a fully double yellow rarer still. 'Double Yellow' is the old French selection that fixed the color.
Oleander, Nerium oleander, is the great sun-loving evergreen of the Mediterranean, grown since antiquity for a long summer of bloom, with dark green, leathery, lance-shaped leaves in whorls of three along long, sparingly branched stems. 'Hardy Red' is one of the cold-tougher selections, carrying showy, lightly fragrant clusters of bright red flowers from late spring well into fall.
Few shrubs carry as much history as the oleander, grown around the Mediterranean and across the warm world since antiquity. The name Nerium traces to the Greek neros, meaning moist or watery, a nod to the streamsides and dry watercourses where oleander naturally takes hold, while the old name oleander seems to braid together olea, the olive, and the leathery, lance-shaped leaves the two plants share. Those dark green leaves stand in tidy whorls of three along long, sparingly branched stems, giving the shrub a poised, upright architecture even out of flower.
Nerium oleander has been grown around the Mediterranean since antiquity, the name Nerium drawn from the Greek neros, watery, for the streamsides where the shrub grows wild. 'Variegata' brings that ancient toughness together with luminous foliage: narrow, leathery leaves edged in creamy white around a deep green center, held in whorls along the stems so the whole shrub seems lightly frosted even when out of flower.
Nerium oleander is among the oldest shrubs in cultivation, grown around the Mediterranean since antiquity and named from the Greek neros, watery, for the streamsides and washes where oleander grows wild. The dark green, leathery, lance-shaped leaves sit in tidy whorls of three along long, sparingly branched stems, lending the shrub a clean, upright presence in every season.
