A garden you can eat from. These are the fruiting trees, shrubs, and vines that pull double duty, ornamental in leaf and flower and then generous with something worth picking. Beauty and harvest from the same plant, chosen to thrive in Southern heat and humidity.
Small black blueberry is a low, delicate native of the sandy soils and pine barrens of the Southeastern coastal plain, a slender member of the heath family long gathered from the wild for its fruit. The species name tenellum means dainty or tender, a fair description of the fine stems and small leaves, and the common name points to the little dark berries that ripen almost black in late summer.
A charming citrus hybrid for containers, winter patios, and kitchen harvests. Known as the calamondin orange, x Citrofortunella mitis 'Calamondin' is a compact, cold-tolerant citrus treasured for abundant fragrant blossoms, ornamental good looks, and tart, edible fruit. A natural cross between the mandarin orange, Citrus reticulata, and the kumquat, Fortunella, calamondin is equally at home on a patio or in a bright kitchen window, offering both beauty and bounty the year round.
Yuzu Ichandrin is not a lemon. This is something older and considerably more interesting, a naturally occurring hybrid between Ichang papeda, Citrus ichangensis, and Satsuma mandarin, long cultivated across the high-elevation citrus regions of China and Japan, and among the most cold-hardy citrus in existence. Where standard yuzu, Citrus junos, and true lemons would surrender to a Southern winter, Ichandrin holds. Mature, established trees have come through ten degrees Fahrenheit with nothing worse than tip dieback. This is, by any honest measure, the citrus a zone 7 or 8 gardener actually gets to keep.
