Magnolia kobus, the kobus magnolia, is a hardy, deciduous magnolia from Japan, grown for a froth of white, lightly fragrant flowers on bare branches in earliest spring. The Japanese name kobushi, from which the species takes its epithet, means fist, a nod to the plump flower buds and knobby young fruit that look like a small clenched hand.
Magnolia macrophylla, the bigleaf magnolia, holds a national record: the largest simple leaves and the largest flowers of any tree native to North America. A deciduous magnolia of rich, sheltered woodlands scattered from West Virginia south to Louisiana and Florida, the tree is scarce in the wild and unforgettable in leaf, with blades up to three feet long and a foot wide, deep green above and a soft silvery white beneath that flashes when the wind turns them.
Magnolia sprengeri 'Diva' is the aristocrat of the pink magnolias, a large, rare deciduous tree from the mountains of western China that smothers itself in spring with big, saucer-shaped flowers of deep rose-pink, sweetly fragrant and opening on bare branches before the leaves. Six to eight inches across and carried in abundance, the blooms make one of the most breathtaking sights in the early garden, yet the tree remains surprisingly little known in American gardens.
Magnolia stellata 'Royal Star' is the star magnolia at its best, a hardy, rounded shrub that opens its first flowers at the very end of winter, well before the leaves, in a froth of white, many-petaled stars. Each bloom carries a dozen or more narrow, strap-like tepals that give a soft, feathery look, and the whole plant can vanish under bloom in a good year, sweetly fragrant into the bargain.
Sweetbay magnolia is one of the loveliest and most useful of the native magnolias, a tree of moist and swampy ground across the eastern United States from Massachusetts to Texas. The northern plants, Magnolia virginiana var. virginiana, are shrubby and deciduous; the southern, var. australis, grow into larger, evergreen trees. All share the sweetbay's gifts: leaves silvery white beneath that flash in the wind, and creamy, intensely fragrant flowers with a clean lemon scent.
Sweetbay magnolia ranges across the moist ground of the eastern United States, from Massachusetts to Texas, and in the South becomes the larger, evergreen tree botanists call Magnolia virginiana var. australis. 'Santa Rosa' is a superior evergreen selection of that southern variety, a Woodlanders introduction gathered in Santa Rosa County, in the Florida panhandle.
Sweetbay is one of the loveliest and most useful of the native magnolias, and this is Sweetbay from the far western edge of the range, the big-leaved, big-flowered form of the Louisiana and east Texas country long known in gardens as Magnolia virginiana ludoviciana. Set against the typical species, these western-Gulf plants carry noticeably larger leaves and flowers, with soft down on the undersides of the leaves and on the flower buds, and grow as small to medium trees of a more open, airy habit.
Hardiness
Zones 7–9
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
20–35 ft.
Spread
15–20 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Tree
Traditional use
respiratory support, general wellness, pain relief
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
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.
The Meiwa kumquat is the sweet one, the kumquat you can pop whole into your mouth and eat skin and all. A small, tidy, evergreen citrus, Fortunella crassifolia carries round, bright orange fruit a little over an inch across, and where most kumquats offer a sweet rind wrapped around sharply sour pulp, the Meiwa softens the contrast: the peel is thick and honey-sweet, the flesh only mildly tart, so the whole fruit eats like candy off the branch.
'Jacob Cline' is the beebalm to beat for sheer red, a native perennial that throws big, deep-crimson flowerheads on tall stems through the heart of summer. The whorled, tubular blooms sit atop four to five feet of square, mint-family stems, and they pull in hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies with a persistence few perennials match; in one major trial 'Jacob Cline' was the single best beebalm for hummingbirds.
Monarda fistulosa, wild bergamot, is one of the great native perennials of the North American prairie, a hardy, aromatic member of the mint family loved for showy heads of lavender-pink and for a fragrance like oregano crossed with mint. The species grows wild in meadows, prairies, and open woods across most of the continent, and brings both vivid summer color and a deep well of history to the garden.
The bayberry candle is one of those traditions so old it has become purely symbolic, burned at Christmas for luck, the scent faint and slightly waxy and unlike anything paraffin has managed to replicate in three centuries of trying. Most people who burn one have no idea what plant produced it, or that the plant is still out there, growing in sandy pocosins and coastal flats from New Jersey to the Gulf, doing quiet work in the margins of the southeastern landscape. That plant is Morella caroliniensis.
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.
Southern wax myrtle is one of the hardest-working native evergreens of the Southeast, and 'Emperor' is a nursery selection of that adaptable shrub. Fast-growing and densely branched, wax myrtle forms a large evergreen shrub or a small multi-trunked tree, clothed in narrow, olive-green leaves that release a clean, spicy, bayberry scent when crushed. The plant thrives where many shrubs fail, from wet ground to dry sand, in sun or shade, on the coast or inland.
Myrtus communis, the true myrtle, is a dense evergreen shrub of the Mediterranean, clothed in small, glossy, aromatic leaves and starry white flowers, and few garden plants carry so much history. Sacred to Aphrodite and to her Roman counterpart Venus, myrtle has stood for love, beauty, and marriage since antiquity, woven into bridal wreaths from ancient Greece to Victorian England, and a sprig from Queen Victoria's own bouquet founded a myrtle whose descendants still supply royal wedding flowers today.
Hardiness
Zones 8–11
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
6–9 ft.
Spread
6–8 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
respiratory support, topical applications, digestive health
The Nagami kumquat is the easiest citrus most gardeners will ever grow, and the only one meant to be eaten peel and all. Clusters of small, oval, sunset-orange fruit hang against dense, glossy evergreen foliage, each one a burst of contrast: a sweet, tender rind wrapped around bright, tart pulp. Pop them whole for a sweet-and-sour snap, candy the rinds, slice them into a salad, or simmer the winter harvest into jewel-toned marmalade.
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.
