Hypericum frondosum 'Sunburst'

Hypericum frondosum 'Sunburst' is the garden-refined face of a tough native shrub, a compact, rounded selection that mounds to about three feet and fills each summer with powderpuff golden flowers, the largest in the species at nearly two inches across, each a dense brush of stamens over broad yellow petals. The leaves are a cool blue-green, and as the season turns the older stems reveal red-brown, exfoliating bark, so the shrub keeps a quiet interest well past bloom.

The wild species scatters across the rocky uplands of the Southeast, and gardeners have long grown the plain form, but 'Sunburst' is the selection that brought Hypericum frondosum into the front rank of garden shrubs. The cultivar was chosen by Dr. Richard Lighty at Mt. Cuba in Delaware, one of the great American gardens for native plants, for a tidier, more compact habit and a heavier show of larger flowers. That refinement is what sets 'Sunburst' apart from a seed-grown shrub: the same toughness in a neater, more floriferous package.

The names tell two stories. The species epithet frondosum means leafy or frondose, for the well-clothed stems, while the common name Cedarglade St. Johnswort points straight to the wild home of the plant, the sun-baked limestone and cedar glades of Kentucky, Tennessee, and the interior Southeast, where thin soil over rock bakes hard in summer. St. John's Wort is the older, shared name of the whole genus Hypericum, from the Greek hyper and eikon, above and image, a memory of the Midsummer custom of hanging the yellow-flowered sprigs above doorways and holy pictures at the feast of Saint John to guard the household.

That glade upbringing is a gift to gardeners: 'Sunburst' is genuinely drought tolerant and asks only for sun and sharp drainage. Set the shrub at the front of a sunny bed or border, as a low informal hedge, or on a hot, dry bank where the blue-green foliage and long summer gold can carry the planting, and let the red-brown bark earn a second look in winter. Little bluestem, coneflowers, amsonia, and other sun-lovers make easy companions, and the flowers draw bees through the heart of summer.