For gardeners in a hurry. Fast-growing plants close the gap between a bare new garden and a full one, putting on real size in a season or two to give shade, screening, and structure while the slower, longer-lived plantings catch up.
Dryopteris ludoviciana, the southern shield fern, is a bold, glossy evergreen native to the wet woodlands of the American South. The species epithet ludoviciana means "of Louisiana," a nod to the swampy bottomlands, blackwater hammocks, and shaded seeps where the fern grows wild, from Florida west to Texas and north through the Carolinas.
Dryopteris ×remota, the remote wood fern or scaly buckler fern, is one of those quiet accidents of nature that turns out better than anything a breeder set out to make. The fern is a naturally occurring hybrid between the scaly male fern, Dryopteris affinis, of western Europe and the British Isles, and the broad buckler fern, Dryopteris expansa, of cooler northern woods. From the affinis parent the hybrid took shaggy stalks thickly clothed in golden-brown scales; from expansa, the fine, lacy cut of the frond. The epithet remota, meaning scattered or spaced apart, points to the way the lowest segments stand a little distant from one another along the frond, a subtle tell that separates this fern from the crowd of look-alike wood ferns.
Golden dewdrop, Duranta erecta, is a member of the verbena family grown across the warm world for two ornaments the shrub carries at once: loose, drooping sprays of soft lilac-blue flowers, each with a darker eye, and long chains of round, glossy amber berries that hang like strings of wet gold. The common name catches that second gift exactly, while older names, pigeon berry and skyflower, catch the first. Native from Mexico and the Caribbean through much of tropical South America, the shrub has been carried into gardens throughout the subtropics, where the plant flowers and fruits nearly year round.
Duranta serratifolia, the tala blanco of northern Argentina, is a South American cousin of the familiar golden dewdrop and belongs, like all Duranta, to the verbena family. The species epithet serratifolia means saw-toothed leaf, for the finely serrated margins that separate this plant from the smoother-leaved dewdrops. In the wild the shrub grows through the dry forests and thorn scrub of the Argentine northwest, where the common name, roughly white tala, sets the plant among the talas, the spiny native trees and shrubs that give those woodlands their character.
True cardamom, Elettaria cardamomum, is a lush, aromatic member of the ginger family and the source of green cardamom, the ancient and costly spice traded for millennia along the Silk Road and across the Indian Ocean. Native to the humid, evergreen hill forests of southern India and Sri Lanka, the plant grows in the dappled shade of the understory, in deep, fertile, always-moist soil. Ranked historically among the most valuable spices in the world, cardamom carries a history as rich as the flavor.
Hardiness
Zones 8–10
Light
Part Shade / Full Shade
Height
6–12 ft.
Spread
3–6 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Perennial
Traditional use
digestive health, respiratory support, general wellness
Erythrina × bidwillii is one of the great show-stoppers among the coral beans, a bold hybrid between the Argentine cockspur coral tree, Erythrina crista-galli, and the southeastern native coral bean, Erythrina herbacea. From that crossing comes a plant with the size and drama of the South American parent and the toughness of the North American one, throwing long spikes of vivid, tubular scarlet flowers through the summer, far larger and more sustained than either parent alone.
The Latin gives away the joke before you have even seen the plant. Ficus vaccinioides, the Formosan creeping fig, is a fig that has decided to impersonate a blueberry: vaccinioides means resembling Vaccinium, and the small, glossy, obovate leaves running close along reddish stems really could pass for an evergreen huckleberry. They are no relation at all. They are a true fig, latex and all, just one that has shrunk to a few inches tall and given up any ambition of climbing.
Few flowers announce themselves the way white ginger lily does after dark. Through late summer and early fall, the tall leafy stems open dense terminal spikes of pure white flowers, each bloom shaped like a hovering butterfly with a small yellow-green stain at the throat, and each one throwing a rich, sweet perfume that carries across a warm garden in the evening air. The scent is jasmine-deep and unmistakable, the reason the flowers are gathered for perfume and personal adornment across the tropics.
Heimia salicifolia is an airy, fine-textured shrub that carries a surprising amount of history in a modest frame. Slender willow-like leaves clothe the arching stems, and from midsummer into fall small, bright yellow, five-petaled flowers open in the leaf axils all along the branches, each followed by a little dry seed capsule. The overall effect is light and gauzy, a soft yellow haze rather than a bold splash, and the plant grows fast and multi-branched into a rounded, four-to-eight-foot mound.
Hibiscus coccineus 'Lone Star' is the pure white form of the scarlet rose mallow, and the change of color changes everything. Where the wild species blazes red, 'Lone Star' opens great five-pointed stars of clean, luminous white, five to seven inches across, glowing against deep green, finely cut foliage and all the more striking in the soft light of evening. The same tall, architectural native frame carries a cooler, more serene presence.
Cuban rose mallow is one of the tall, slender members of the perennial hibiscus tribe, a plant that reads as airy and upright rather than bushy. Through the summer the stems carry fairly large flowers in a soft purplish pink, the classic mallow saucer set against distinctly gray-green foliage, and the stems themselves are lightly prickly to the touch. Rising to seven or ten feet on narrow clumps, the plant lifts the bloom well up where the color can be seen from a distance.
Hibiscus moscheutos, the rose mallow, is the hardiest of the perennial hibiscus and the tough, cold-proof parent behind most of the dinner-plate hibiscus sold today. The wild plant is a stout, clump-forming perennial of eastern marshes, rising to six or eight feet each summer and opening broad flowers to six inches and more, clean white or soft pink with a dramatic crimson eye at the center. For sheer size of bloom on a plant that shrugs off hard winters, little else compares.
From the warm lower slopes of the Himalayas, where they scramble through scrub from India and Nepal on into Bhutan, comes one of the more theatrical shrubs you can grow. The genus carries the name of Johan Theodor Holmskiold, an eighteenth-century Danish botanist, while sanguinea nods at the blood-red flush the flowers take on with age. For years they sat in Verbenaceae. Botanists have since moved them into Lamiaceae, the mint family, which makes them distant kin to salvia, rosemary, and teak. You would never guess as much to look at them.
Hypericum reductum is the ground-hugging member of the family, a low, heathery evergreen that mounds and mats rather than climbing, rarely rising much above the knee. The stems are crowded with fine, needle-like, deep green leaves that give an almost coniferous texture, and through late spring and summer the whole low sweep is dotted with small, bright yellow, star-shaped flowers full of stamens.
Jasminum officinale, also known as white jasmine, is a climbing vine with delicate white blooms. This plant grows well in southern zones and performs best in full sun with support.
Jasminum officinale var. grandiflorum, the Spanish or Royal jasmine, is the large-flowered, intensely fragrant jasmine of perfume and tradition, a semi-evergreen twining vine that opens clusters of pure white, star-shaped flowers whose scent is among the most prized in the plant world. Larger-flowered and more tender than the common poet's jasmine, this is the plant behind jasmine absolute, the costly essence at the heart of classic perfumery.
Hardiness
Zones 8–10
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
10–15 ft.
Spread
4–6 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Vine
Traditional use
topical applications, mental & emotional well-being, general wellness
Jasminum x stephanense, the Stephan jasmine, is the rare pink-flowered hybrid of the group, a cross between the red jasmine, Jasminum beesianum, and the poet's jasmine, Jasminum officinale. The vigorous, semi-evergreen scrambling vine carries small, soft pink, fragrant flowers over slender stems clothed in fine pinnate leaves, combining the pink of one parent with the hardiness and perfume of the other.
Morella pumila is the dwarf waxmyrtle, a low, native evergreen that keeps everything gardeners love about the common wax myrtle, aromatic foliage, waxy berries, and a tough constitution, and shrinks it all to knee height. Native to the frequently burned pinelands of the southern United States, the plant is an adaptation to that fiery world, staying small and spreading slowly into dense patches and colonies by underground runners.
Muhlenbergia dumosa, bamboo muhly, is a desert-born grass with the grace of bamboo, drifting like cloud shadow across the canyon floor. From the arid uplands and rocky washes of northern Mexico and southern Arizona, where sun-scorched cliffs and canyon walls shaped the character of the species, bamboo muhly evolved to thrive on dry air and lean soils, and yet carries the fluid elegance of true bamboo, swaying at the faintest breeze.
