{"title":"Plants Starting with \"H\"","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"citrus-x-citrus-ponciris-trifoliata-x-citrus-sinensis-benton","title":"Hybrid Citrus 'Benton' (Poncirus trifoliata x Citrus sinensis)","description":"\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders has long championed hardy citrus, the trifoliate hybrids that push oranges and their kin well beyond the usual citrus belt, and 'Benton' is one of the toughest of the group. The plant is a citrange, a deliberate cross between the sweet orange, Citrus sinensis, and the hardy trifoliate orange, Poncirus trifoliata, that legendary deciduous, thorny survivor of cold-country citrus breeding. The name citrange simply fuses citrus and orange, and the hybrids inherit the trifoliate orange's remarkable cold tolerance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Benton' originated in Australia and carries the citrange's practical reputation: cold hardy, dense, thorny, clothed mostly in trifoliate leaves, and grown as much for use as for looks. Like most citranges, the fruit is not much for fresh eating, tart and seedy, though the juice, diluted and sweetened, makes a refreshing orangeade. Growers value the plant chiefly as understock, the rootstock onto which more tender citrus is grafted, and 'Benton' has the added quirk of sometimes producing curious fingered fruits.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn spring the shrub opens fragrant white flowers, often brushed with purple on the outer petals, the unmistakable perfume of citrus in a plant that can take real frost. That bloom gives way to rounded, orange-like fruit that ripens more cold-tolerant than any true orange thanks to the trifoliate parentage. Unlike a tropical citrus, 'Benton' is only semi-evergreen: in the Deep South the shrub holds much of the foliage through winter, while colder gardens see the leaves thin or drop before spring pushes them back.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor the garden, 'Benton' works as a hardy, ornamental novelty and a formidable barrier. The dense, thorny frame makes an effective informal hedge or security planting, and the fragrant spring flowers, trifoliate leaves, and odd winter fruit give the plant year-round interest in full sun. Site the shrub in well-drained soil where the spines will not surprise a passerby, and enjoy the rare pleasure of citrus fragrance in a climate too cold for oranges.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhoto credit: UC Riverside, Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057838297203,"sku":"HYBR-CITR-BENT-PONC-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/ScreenShot2024-07-18at2.12.14PM.png?v=1721326348"},{"product_id":"citrus-x-citrus-ponciris-trifoliata-x-citrus-reticulata-changsha-x-english-large","title":"Hardy Citrus 'Changsha x English Large'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is a cold-hardy citrus hybrid bred to carry oranges into gardens too cold for ordinary citrus, a cross between the trifoliate orange, Poncirus trifoliata, in the large-flowered form called 'English Large', and the notably hardy Changsha mandarin, Citrus reticulata. Both parents are prized for cold tolerance, and stacking the two produces a small, thorny tree that shrugs off freezes that would kill a true orange. The cross matches the well-known US-852 citrandarin, a hardy-citrus line from the USDA breeding program.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result is a small, thorny tree, semi-evergreen in mild winters and briefly deciduous in hard ones, carrying fragrant white spring flowers and small orange fruits. The chief value here is toughness rather than dessert quality, since the fruit runs small and seedy, a curiosity and an ornament more than a fresh-eating orange. Where the appeal lies is in growing recognizable citrus, in flower and in fruit, far outside the citrus belt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders has been a leader in cold-hardy citrus for decades, and this Poncirus and Changsha hybrid fits squarely in that tradition, hardy to somewhere near zero degrees and reliable through zone 7. The trifoliate orange parent lends both the cold hardiness and the fierce thorns, which make the tree a formidable barrier or security hedge as well as a conversation piece. Fragrant in spring and studded with little oranges in fall, this is citrus for the adventurous northern gardener.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive the hybrid full sun and well-drained soil, and expect steady growth into a small, well-armed tree. Use the plant as a cold-hardy citrus novelty for the edible-landscape enthusiast, a thorny living fence, or a collector's piece with a real breeding pedigree behind it. For a gardener who has always wanted to grow an orange where oranges are not supposed to grow, few plants are as satisfying.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhoto used is straight Changsha, we do not yet have a photo of this hybrid.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057838461043,"sku":"CITR-PONC-TRIF-CHAN-01G","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Citrus_reticulata_Changsha_Woodlanders_2.jpg?v=1731555826"},{"product_id":"halesia-carolina-tetraptera","title":"Halesia carolina (tetraptera)","description":"\u003cp\u003eCarolina silverbell is one of the loveliest of the small native trees of the Southern woods, a deciduous tree of the southeastern United States that lights the spring understory with hundreds of little white bells. In April and May, before or as the leaves unfold, the branches hang thick with clusters of nodding, bell-shaped white flowers, an effect much like a flowering dogwood but softer, and just as welcome at the woodland edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe tree makes an outstanding landscape ornamental where the soil is deep, fertile, well-drained, and reliably moist, and can be used much as the common dogwood, Cornus florida, is used: as a specimen, an understory tree, or a graceful layer along a woodland margin. Gray, handsomely striped bark and clear yellow fall color extend the interest well past the spring show.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA note on names, since silverbells have shuffled through several: botanists now recognize this tree as Halesia tetraptera, and what was once called Halesia parviflora is now placed under Halesia carolina. Whatever the label on the pot, the plant is the familiar, beloved Carolina silverbell of Southern gardens, a member of the storax family, Styracaceae.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive silverbell a sheltered, part-shaded to sunny spot with acid, humus-rich, well-drained soil and steady moisture, much the ground a dogwood or a rhododendron would enjoy. The flowers are followed by curious four-winged dry fruits, the four papery wings behind the epithet tetraptera, that hang on into fall. Pair with dogwoods, native azaleas, and woodland wildflowers for a spring picture that few small trees can match.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"1 Gallon","offer_id":42961520525427,"sku":"HALE-CARO-TETR-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"1 Quart","offer_id":42961520558195,"sku":"HALE-CARO-TETR-01Q","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-79.jpg?v=1720138369"},{"product_id":"halesia-diptera","title":"Halesia diptera","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn spring, the bare gray branches of the two-wing silverbell fill with small white bells, three to six to a cluster, hanging along the year-old wood like a run of tiny lanterns. Each flower is a half-inch, four-lobed cup, and en masse they turn a modest understory tree into one of the quiet highlights of the southern woodland spring. This silverbell grows as a large multi-stemmed shrub or a small tree, rarely more than thirty feet, with an open, layered frame that lets light through to whatever grows below.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name carries two good stories. The genus honors Stephen Hales, the eighteenth-century English clergyman and scientist whose \u003cem\u003eVegetable Staticks\u003c\/em\u003e laid the groundwork for the study of how sap moves through plants; John Ellis published the name in 1759. The species epithet, \u003cem\u003ediptera\u003c\/em\u003e, is Greek for two-winged, and points to the ripe fruit: a dry, hard capsule flanked by two papery wings, where the more familiar Carolina silverbell carries four. That single detail is the surest way to tell the two apart once flowering is over. An older common name, snowdrop tree, catches the other half of the picture, the drifts of white that arrive before the leaves fully expand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo-wing silverbell belongs to the Coastal Plain of the Deep South, native from South Carolina and Florida west to eastern Texas, where the tree threads the banks of streams and the lower slopes of ravines in moist, humus-rich, acid soil. Bees work the spring bells for nectar and pollen, and squirrels and other wildlife take the green fruit before the wings dry and the capsule hardens. Though rooted in the warm South, this silverbell proves hardy well to the north, taking cold a zone or two beyond the native range.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, treat the two-wing silverbell as a spring-flowering understory tree for a woodland edge, a shaded border, or a spot beside a path where the hanging bells can be looked up into from below. The tree asks for the same cool, moist, well-drained, acid ground that suits dogwoods, azaleas, and rhododendrons, so plant them together for a native spring picture, and avoid high-pH soils, which the roots resent. A clean butter-yellow fall color follows the flowers, giving a second, quieter season before the leaves drop.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057877225587,"sku":"HALE-DIPT-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-80.jpg?v=1720138373"},{"product_id":"halesia-diptera-var-magniflora","title":"Halesia diptera var. magniflora","description":"\u003cp\u003eOf all the silverbells, this is the one plant hunters remember. \u003cem\u003eHalesia diptera\u003c\/em\u003e var. \u003cem\u003emagniflora\u003c\/em\u003e is the large-flowered form of the two-wing silverbell, and the difference is not subtle: the white, bell-shaped flowers run half again larger than the type, sometimes an inch and more across, with the lobes cut so deeply that each bloom flares open like a little white star rather than a closed bell. In full flower, before the leaves are fully out, the branches all but vanish beneath them, and a mature specimen becomes a cloud of white in the April woods.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe variety name says exactly what the eye already knows. \u003cem\u003eMagniflora\u003c\/em\u003e is Latin for large-flowered, a fitting note under a genus named for Stephen Hales, the eighteenth-century scientist who pioneered the study of how water moves through plants, and a species named \u003cem\u003ediptera\u003c\/em\u003e, two-winged, for the pair of papery wings on the dry ripe fruit. Botanically this is still a two-wing silverbell; horticulturally the plant is the aristocrat of the group, the form that connoisseurs of native trees seek out and seldom find offered.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe wild range is narrow. This large-flowered variety grows native in a limited stretch of the Florida Panhandle and the neighboring Gulf Coast, along shaded bluffs and rich, moist ravines near the Apalachicola and other blackwater rivers, exactly the kind of cool, humus-rich, acid ground that produces so many of the region's botanical treasures. Scarcity in the wild is part of why the tree is rarely available in the trade, and part of why a garden-grown plant is worth the search.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive this silverbell a semi-shaded, moist but well-drained site, and treat the tree as a spring-flowering understory specimen for a woodland edge, a shaded border, or a courtyard where the oversized bells can be looked up into from below. Plant among dogwoods, azaleas, rhododendrons, and ferns that share the same taste for cool, acid soil, shelter the crown from harsh afternoon sun in the Deep South, and let a yellow fall color close a season that began with the finest flowers the silverbells can offer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057877291123,"sku":"HALE-DIPT-MAGN-01G","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1363.jpg?v=1720138377"},{"product_id":"hamamelis-virginiana","title":"Hamamelis virginiana","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHamamelis virginiana\u003c\/em\u003e does everything backwards, and that is the entire appeal. When the rest of the woods has shut down for the year, when the leaves are gone and nothing else is in flower, witch hazel chooses that exact moment to bloom: spidery yellow flowers, all thin crimped strap-like petals, scattered along the bare branches through late fall and into the cold. They carry a faint sweet scent on a mild day and they wait, patiently, for whatever gnat or late fly is still working, because almost nothing else is. This is the shrub that flowers when flowering makes no sense, and is all the more loved for the defiance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name written into the genus tells you the other half of the trick. \u003cem\u003eHamamelis\u003c\/em\u003e comes from Greek for \"fruit at the same time,\" because this is very likely the only native woody plant in America to carry this year's flowers, last year's ripening seed capsules, and next year's leaf buds on the branch all at once. And those capsules do something worth waiting for: when they finally dry and split, they fire their hard black seeds as far as twenty-five feet, with an audible snap, then hang on the twigs afterward like little open beaks. A plant that blooms in the cold and flings seed across the clearing is not trying to be ordinary.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen there's the name itself, which is half the romance. Early settlers, confusing the plant with the European hazel and borrowing an old Anglo-Saxon word for \"bend,\" watched Native peoples cut the forked branches into divining rods and walk them over the ground to dowse for water, the fork dipping where the well should go. The Mohegan are credited with teaching the practice, which followed well-diggers into the twentieth century. The famous astringent came later: in 1866 Thomas Dickinson built a distillery and turned the steeped twigs into the witch hazel still sold in every pharmacy, a recipe learned in part from the Cherokee and Iroquois.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor all that history, this is an easy plant. A large multi-stemmed shrub or small tree of the eastern woods, adaptable to most soils and sites, sun to shade, with leaves that turn a clean buttery gold before they drop to reveal the flowers beneath. Notably, after centuries in cultivation the species has produced no garden cultivars worth keeping, a quiet endorsement of the original: nobody has improved on the wild plant, because the wild plant is already right. \u003cem\u003eHamamelis virginiana\u003c\/em\u003e is native magic, the kind you plant once and watch do something strange and lovely every November when everything else has called it a year.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhotos courtesy of \u003ca rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/plants.ces.ncsu.edu\/plants\/hamamelis-virginiana\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eKurt Wagner and Randy Harter\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057878077555,"sku":"HAMA-VIRG-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Hamamelisvirginiana_Kurt_Wagner.jpg?v=1723299375"},{"product_id":"hamelia-patens","title":"Hamelia patens","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirebush earns the name honestly. From late spring until the first frost, the arching branch tips carry tight clusters of slender tubular flowers in hot orange-red, each one a narrow torch held out for the hummingbirds and butterflies that work the plant from morning to dusk. The foliage plays along: new leaves and stems flush bronze to burgundy, the veins stained red, so that even between flushes of bloom the whole shrub reads warm. Few plants pull in as much winged traffic through the heat of a southern summer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBotanically, firebush sits in the Rubiaceae, the coffee and gardenia family, and the genus honors Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau, the eighteenth-century French botanist and agriculturist; the species name \u003cem\u003epatens\u003c\/em\u003e means spreading, for the open, arching habit. The native range is enormous, running from Florida and the Gulf south through Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean all the way to Argentina. Across that range the plant collects names: hummingbird bush, scarlet bush, redhead, and, among the Maya of Belize, Ix Canaan, the Guardian of the Forest.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat guardian name is no accident. Indigenous peoples across tropical America have long turned to the leaves and stems, toasted and ground or steeped, as a topical remedy for cuts, burns, sores, rashes, insect bites, and skin infections, with other traditions using preparations for cramps, fever, and rheumatism. Modern screening has found antibacterial and antifungal compounds in the extracts, lending some laboratory weight to the old uses. The small berries ripen red to black and are edible, taken eagerly by birds in the wild and made into a fermented drink in parts of Mexico and Central America.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, give firebush a hot, sunny, well-drained spot and let the plant do what the name promises: a bold summer-to-frost anchor for a pollinator border, a hummingbird garden, a cottage planting, or a large container. Behavior shifts with climate, so place accordingly. In the frost-free lower South and the tropics the plant builds a woody evergreen shrub to eight feet or more; from about zone 8 the tops die to the ground each winter and return as a fast four-to-six-foot perennial. Where hard freezes are expected, cut the killed tops back, mound coarse sand over the stubs, and cover with pine straw, then pull the mulch away as spring warms and the new shoots push. Woodlanders offers both the typical variety \u003cem\u003epatens\u003c\/em\u003e and the smoother-leaved \u003cem\u003eglabra\u003c\/em\u003e, the latter very likely the cultivar known as 'Firefly'.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057878601843,"sku":"HAME-PATE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Hamelia_patens_JimRobbinsWoodlanders1.jpg?v=1760386548"},{"product_id":"hedychium-coronarium","title":"Hedychium coronarium","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name is as pretty as the plant. \u003cem\u003eHedychium\u003c\/em\u003e joins the Greek \u003cem\u003ehedys\u003c\/em\u003e, sweet, and \u003cem\u003echion\u003c\/em\u003e, snow, sweet snow, for the fragrant white flowers; the species name \u003cem\u003ecoronarium\u003c\/em\u003e marks a bloom long used for garlands and crowns. This is a true ginger, a member of the Zingiberaceae that spreads by thick aromatic rhizomes and throws long, canna-like leaves. Despite the common name Hawaiian ginger lily, the plant is no native of the islands: the wild home is the Eastern Himalaya and the hills of southern Asia, from India, Nepal, and Bhutan through Myanmar and Thailand into southern China, and the ginger merely naturalized in Hawaii long after arriving with people.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne country claims the flower outright. In Cuba the white ginger lily is la mariposa, the butterfly, and has stood as the national flower since 1936, an emblem of purity, peace, and the long fight for independence. The story goes that Cuban women wove the blooms into their hair and dress in colonial times and used the intricate, folded inflorescence to hide and carry secret messages for the independence cause, a small white flower pressed into the service of a nation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, give white ginger lily rich, moist ground in sun to part shade and let the rhizomes build a lush tropical stand for a border, a poolside, a pond margin, or a large container set where the evening fragrance drifts toward a door or a seat. The plant grows fast and spreads steadily, so allow room or a contained bed, and note the difference climate makes: in the warm, wet tropics the ginger can run aggressively and is considered invasive along waterways, while in temperate zones 8 to 10 winter dormancy keeps the plant well-mannered. A deep mulch carries the rhizomes through cold at the northern edge.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057879191667,"sku":"HEDY-CORO-01G","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-893.jpg?v=1720138426"},{"product_id":"hedychium-coccineum","title":"Hedychium coccineum","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis ginger relative is a tall herbaceous perennial spreading by rhizomes. Showy spikes of reddish flowers on terminals of tall plants with long corn-like leaves. It spreads to form colonies in rich moist soil in sunny or semi-shady areas. Woodlanders originally obtained this Asian native ginger as seed from Coimbra, Portugal.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057879584883,"sku":"HEDY-COCC-01G","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-892.jpg?v=1720138433"},{"product_id":"hedychium-coccineum-disney","title":"Hedychium coccineum 'Disney'","description":"\u003cp\u003eHedychium coccineum 'Disney' is a hardy ginger lily that brings the tropics to a temperate garden, sending up tall leafy canes each summer and crowning them, from late summer into fall, with bold spikes of fragrant orange flowers. Each bloom throws out long, whiskery stamens for a bottlebrush effect, and the whole spike carries a sweet perfume that drifts on warm evening air. 'Disney' is among the best and most upright selections of the scarlet ginger lily, holding the flower heads proudly above the foliage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe lush, lance-shaped leaves clothe upright canes to five or seven feet through the growing season, a wall of tropical green that makes a fine backdrop or a bold accent all on its own. The scarlet ginger lily hails from the Himalayas, and that mountain origin is exactly what makes 'Disney' hardier than most gingers, able to weather winters that would finish a tender one. Butterflies and hummingbirds work the orange flowers through the late season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow 'Disney' from spreading rhizomes in full sun to part shade, in rich, moist, well-drained soil, and give plenty of heat and water through the summer for the fullest growth and bloom. In all but the warmest gardens the canes die to the ground with the first hard frost and resprout from the rhizomes in spring, so cut the spent stems down after frost and mulch the roots where winters are cold. Where the plant is happy, the clump widens a little each year.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUse Hedychium coccineum 'Disney' where the size and scent can be enjoyed, at the back of a sunny border, beside a patio or pool, or in a big container, paired with cannas, bananas, and other bold tropicals. The fragrant orange spikes are magnets for butterflies and hummingbirds, and the whole planting reads as pure exotic luxury on a plant tough enough to come back year after year. For a hardy taste of the tropics, few gingers do it better.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057879945331,"sku":"HEDY-COCC-DISN-01G","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Hedychium_Disney_3NC.webp?v=1784309385"},{"product_id":"heimia-salicifolia","title":"Heimia salicifolia","description":"\u003cp\u003eHeimia 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe botany holds a couple of pleasant surprises. The genus honors Ernst Ludwig Heim, an eighteenth-century German physician and naturalist, and the species name \u003cem\u003esalicifolia\u003c\/em\u003e simply means willow-leaved. Though the habit and yellow bloom recall \u003cem\u003eHypericum\u003c\/em\u003e, the St. John's worts, Heimia in fact belongs to the Lythraceae, the loosestrife family, and counts crepe myrtle and henna among the closer relatives. The native range is broad and warm, running from the southern United States through Mexico and Central America into South America, wherever sun and moisture meet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat sets this shrub apart is a deep and slightly uncanny ethnobotanical record. Across Mexico the leaves are the source of sinicuichi, also called sun opener, a preparation the Aztecs and later peoples made by crushing and lightly fermenting the foliage in water and sun. Taken traditionally, the drink was reputed to bring a mild euphoria, a curious yellowing of vision, and vivid auditory effects, the shifting of sound that earned the sun-opener name. Alongside that visionary reputation runs a genuine medicinal tradition: the plant has served as a tonic, diuretic, and wound remedy, and laboratory work has found the alkaloids, chiefly vertine, to be capable anti-inflammatories, which lends the old uses some modern weight.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, treat Heimia salicifolia as a heat-loving, sun-loving shrub for a pollinator planting, an ethnobotanical or collector's bed, or a hot, well-drained border, where the fine foliage and long yellow season earn a place among tougher companions. Give full sun and moderately moist, well-drained soil; the plant asks little once established and takes drought in stride. In colder gardens grow the shrub as a tender perennial that dies back and returns, or overwinter a plant in a pot under cover. Handsome and easy, and worth siting where the story can be told. A note of caution: the fermented leaf preparation is genuinely psychoactive and can be toxic in quantity, so grow the plant for beauty and interest rather than experiment.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057880076403,"sku":"HEIM-SALI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1953.jpg?v=1720138450"},{"product_id":"helianthus-angustifolius","title":"Helianthus angustifolius","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe name does the plant no favors. \"Swamp sunflower\" conjures boggy ground and standing water, which is where you find the plant in the wild, yes, but not where you need to plant this sunflower in the garden. \u003cem\u003eHelianthus angustifolius\u003c\/em\u003e tolerates wet soils in nature because wet soils are where the plant manages to grow without being outcompeted. Given good sun and average garden moisture, the sunflower performs considerably better and needs no drainage problem to justify a place. The name is a provenance note, not a planting instruction.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat the plant actually is: one of the best late-season natives available to Southern and mid-Atlantic gardeners, blooming from October through November at the precise moment when the rest of the border has exhausted itself. The flowers are classic sunflower in form, two to three inches across, with clear yellow rays surrounding a deep purplish-brown disc, the color combination that looks as if it were designed for October specifically, which in a biological sense it was. On a mature plant in full flower, the display is not subtle. Stems reach six to eight feet and branch freely in the upper third, so a well-sited colony becomes a mass of yellow that carries from across the garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe ecological credentials are worth knowing. The bloom period overlaps directly with the monarch migration, and the nectar is relied upon by southbound butterflies refueling along the Eastern Flyway. The plant is also a larval host for several checkerspot and painted lady species. The seeds that follow are small but oil-rich, and songbirds, quail, and mourning doves work through the spent flower heads all winter. Leaving the stems standing until late winter costs nothing and returns something measurable to the local food web.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHelianthus angustifolius\u003c\/em\u003e spreads by rhizome to form colonies over time, which is either useful or something to manage depending on what you want from the planting. Either way, a colony in October is worth the conversation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057880305779,"sku":"HELI-ANGU-01G","price":12.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1833.jpg?v=1720138459"},{"product_id":"helianthus-verticillatus","title":"Helianthus verticillatus","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHelianthus verticillatus\u003c\/em\u003e is a sunflower you grow as much for the story as the flower, though the flower holds up on merit. The plainest field mark is the leaves: narrow, lance-shaped, and arranged in distinct whorls of three or four around the stem rather than in the usual opposite or alternate pairs, a tidy structural signature that names the plant and sets the species apart from every common sunflower. Tall and strong-stemmed, the plant rises six to ten feet and lifts open clusters of clear yellow, dark-centered flowers in late summer and early fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe whorled sunflower came within a whisker of vanishing. First collected in 1892 near Henderson, Tennessee, the species then dropped from sight for over a century and was widely presumed extinct, until a botanist rediscovered a stand along the Coosa River in Floyd County, Georgia, in 1994. A handful of other populations have since turned up in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, but the total is tiny: only a few sites, and by one genetic study perhaps three to four hundred distinct individuals in all the world. Federal protection followed, and the whorled sunflower was listed as endangered in 2014. Much of the decline traces to the loss of fire, since the open, damp prairie habitat the plant needs closes over without periodic burning.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor all that fragility in the wild, the plant is vigorous in cultivation. A member of the aster family and a true perennial sunflower, the whorled sunflower spreads by rhizome, grows fast, and flowers generously in full sun and moist to average soil. The late-season bloom arrives when pollinators most need the fuel, and bees and butterflies work the flowers heavily, while the seed heads feed birds into winter. Given room and light, a clump builds quickly into a strong vertical presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, use the whorled sunflower at the back of a large sunny bed, in a native or meadow-style planting, or in a pollinator border where height and a long autumn show are wanted. Give full sun and steady moisture, allow space for the rhizomes to travel, and pair with asters, native grasses, and other late bloomers for a rich fall picture. Growing a nursery-propagated plant is also a small act of conservation, keeping a nearly lost native alive and in circulation well beyond the few wild places the species still holds.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057880404083,"sku":"HELI-VERT-01G","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1539.jpg?v=1720138463"},{"product_id":"helleborus-orientalis","title":"Helleborus x hybridus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Lenten rose is not a rose at all, but a member of the buttercup tribe that happens to flower around Lent, in the raw weeks of late winter when the garden is otherwise bare. The blooms are nodding cups a couple of inches across, held just above the foliage in white, cream, pink, plum, and a smoky green, many of them freckled or veined at the throat. What look like petals are in fact sepals, which is the secret of the long show: rather than dropping in days, the flowers hold for weeks and age slowly to green, carrying color from late winter well into spring.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name is a warning in Greek. \u003cem\u003eHelleborus\u003c\/em\u003e joins \u003cem\u003ehelein\u003c\/em\u003e, to injure or kill, and \u003cem\u003ebora\u003c\/em\u003e, food, a blunt acknowledgment that every part of the plant is poisonous. Antiquity knew this well: the writers Theophrastus and Dioscorides described hellebore, and one grim account has the plant used to poison the water supply of the besieged city of Kirrha in the sixth century BC. That same toxicity is a quiet garden virtue now, since deer and rabbits recognize the bitterness and leave the leathery, evergreen, palmate leaves strictly alone. Handsome the year round, the foliage gives structure long after the flowers have faded.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHelleborus x hybridus\u003c\/em\u003e is not one species but a garden hybrid, a swarm bred from the Lenten rose and related kinds, and the resulting plants are the most forgiving hellebores for the warm-temperate garden. Grown from seed, the offspring vary in color and marking, so each plant is a little different, and the long-lasting sepals make even the simplest a good doer. As Woodlanders notes, other species of hellebore can be had, but this hybrid is perhaps the easiest to grow in southern gardens, and named color forms and selections are offered by various growers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, plant the Lenten rose in shade or dappled light in well-drained but moisture-retentive, ideally acid soil, at a woodland edge, along a shaded path, or massed as an evergreen groundcover beneath deciduous trees. The nodding flowers are best appreciated from below, so site the plants on a slope or a raised bed, or beside a walk where the faces can be tipped up by hand. Pair with ferns, epimedium, hardy cyclamen, and early bulbs for a long winter-into-spring picture, and value the drought tolerance that lets a mature clump hold its own in the dry shade under trees. Cut away the tattered old leaves as the buds rise, and let the fresh flowers take the stage.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057880830067,"sku":"HELL-X-HYBR-01Q","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/872BE62B-265D-4AE9-9EFF-AC76DC0A2979.jpg?v=1773767007"},{"product_id":"heptacodium-miconioides","title":"Heptacodium miconioides","description":"\u003cp\u003eHeptacodium miconioides, the seven-son flower, is a large, fountain-shaped shrub or small tree that saves its best for the tail of the year, when most of the garden is winding down. In late summer, tiered clusters of small, fragrant, creamy-white flowers open in whorls of seven, the arrangement behind both the botanical and common names. Bees and butterflies work the late flowers gratefully, in a season when little else is on offer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen comes the real surprise. As the white petals fall, the calyces behind them swell and flush from rose-pink to cherry-red, holding a second, longer-lasting display well into autumn, brighter by far than the flowers that preceded it. And when the leaves finally drop, a third season begins: the bark peels in long tan and brown strips, dressing the winter stems in quiet texture. Few plants pack three seasons into one frame so generously.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe seven-son flower is a tree now rare in the wild of central China, first collected by the great plant hunter Ernest Wilson in 1907 and then, remarkably, lost to Western gardens for more than seventy years. Seed gathered by the 1980 Sino-American Botanical Expedition finally brought the plant into cultivation, where a rare toughness, adaptability, and long season of beauty quickly won a wide following. The sole species in the genus, Heptacodium has no close garden relatives for comparison.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrow Heptacodium miconioides in full sun to part shade in almost any well-drained soil, with even moisture through the establishing years, and expect fast, easy growth into a shrub of fifteen to twenty feet. Leave the plant multi-stemmed for a broad shrub, or limb the plant up to reveal the peeling bark as a small tree; either way the plant earns a spot as a specimen or a late-season pollinator anchor. For three seasons of interest on one tough, low-fuss plant, the seven-son flower is hard to beat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhotos courtesy of the Missouri Botanical Garden\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057880961139,"sku":"HEPT-MICO-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/HeptacodiummiconioidesMBG.jpg?v=1784324553"},{"product_id":"hesperaloe-parviflora","title":"Hesperaloe parviflora","description":"\u003cp\u003eRed yucca is one of those plants that looks like architecture and behaves, in the best sense, like a weed, thriving on neglect while holding a clean sculptural shape all year. From a low rosette of slender, arching, blue-gray leaves, each edged with curling white threads, the plant throws tall, wiry flower wands to four or five feet through the warm months, hung with dangling tubular blooms in coral-pink to deep red. Hummingbirds find the flowers almost the moment they open, and the bloom carries from late spring well into fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe common name is a small botanical fib. Despite the yucca in the name and the yucca-like rosette, this is no true yucca: \u003cem\u003eHesperaloe\u003c\/em\u003e belongs to the same broad family, the Asparagaceae, but sits in a genus all its own. The name points west, joining the Greek \u003cem\u003ehesperos\u003c\/em\u003e, of the evening or the western lands, with \u003cem\u003ealoe\u003c\/em\u003e, for the succulent look, while \u003cem\u003eparviflora\u003c\/em\u003e simply means small-flowered. Red yucca is native to the Chihuahuan Desert country of west and central Texas and neighboring northeastern Mexico, a hard, sun-baked land that explains the toughness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat desert pedigree is the selling point. Red yucca asks for almost nothing: full sun, sharp drainage, and no supplemental water once established, taking heat, drought, reflected pavement glare, and cold down to around zero without complaint. Deer leave the fibrous leaves alone, and the evergreen rosette holds form through winter when softer plants have collapsed. Few plants deliver this much structure and this long a bloom for so little care.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, use red yucca as a bold evergreen accent in a xeriscape, a rock or gravel garden, a hot median or parking strip, a container, or a low-water border, where the fine rosette and tall flower wands read against stone, gravel, and other desert plants. Mass several for a rhythm of vertical bloom stalks, or set one as a specimen where the silhouette can carry. Pair with agaves, yuccas, salvias, and ornamental grasses, and site where hummingbirds can be watched working the wands through the heat of summer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057881092211,"sku":"HESP-PARV-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/HesperaloeparvifloraSallyAndyWasowskiWoodlanders2.jpg?v=1749144218"},{"product_id":"heteropterys-glabra","title":"Heteropterys glabra","description":"\u003cp\u003eRedwing is grown less for the flowers than for what follows them. Through the warm months this fast, twining, semi-woody climber carries loose clusters of small clear-yellow flowers along the stems, pretty enough in passing, but the real event comes after, when each pollinated bloom ripens into a bright red winged fruit, a samara built exactly like the spinning key of a maple. In quantity the red keys smother the vine and glow against the small, neat foliage, an unexpected and long-lasting display that few visitors can name.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe resemblance to maple is pure coincidence. Redwing belongs to the Malpighiaceae, the tropical family of the acerola or Barbados cherry, and comes by the winged fruit through an entirely separate line: the genus name \u003cem\u003eHeteropterys\u003c\/em\u003e, from the Greek for different wings, marks the unequal wings on the samara, while \u003cem\u003eglabra\u003c\/em\u003e notes the smooth, hairless leaves. Native to South America, the vine brings a touch of the subtropics to a warm-temperate garden and remains genuinely uncommon in cultivation, a plant for the collector and the curious.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a garden plant, redwing is easygoing and quick. The long, flexible stems climb and scramble readily, so give the vine a sturdy support to clothe: an arbor, a pergola, a fence, or a large trellis in full sun to part shade. Growth is fast once established, the small leaves cast light, dappled shade, and the plant asks only for reasonable drainage and warmth. Where winters bite, the top may die back and return, or a plant can be grown in a large pot and wintered under cover.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, treat redwing as a warm-season screen or a conversation piece where the red-keyed fruit can be seen at close range: along a rail, over a gateway, or against a wall where the color reads. Pair with other subtropical climbers and hot-border plants, and site where late-summer sun can light the ripening samaras. Nothing else in the garden will look quite like the vine hung with red maple keys that never came from a maple.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057881157747,"sku":"HETE-GLAB-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-828.jpg?v=1720138492"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-paramutabilis-x-syriacus-tosca","title":"Hibiscus paramutabilis x syriacus 'Tosca'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Tosca' is the offspring of a rare and deliberate cross, a marriage of Hibiscus paramutabilis, the regal, large-flowered species of southeastern China, with Hibiscus syriacus, the familiar Rose of Sharon of countless summer gardens. From that union comes a woody shrub that carries the best of both parents: the scale and drama of the Chinese species and the toughness and reliability of the old dooryard favorite.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the reason to grow 'Tosca'. Oversized and softly ruffled, they open in shades of orchid-pink to magenta, each bloom marked by a dramatic carmine eye that bleeds outward toward the petal edges like a watercolor stroke. The flowers run larger and more flamboyant than those of an ordinary Rose of Sharon, with a looser, more romantic form that recalls antique garden cultivars, yet they sit on a plant with a far hardier constitution.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnlike the tropical members of the hibiscus tribe, 'Tosca' is a reliably deciduous shrub, growing upright and well-branched and dropping the leaves cleanly each fall. The plant is hardy through the Deep South and can be pushed farther north with a sheltered, wind-protected site. Rose of Sharon has been a fixture of temperate gardens since the species reached Europe from Asia centuries ago, valued precisely for blooming late and asking little, and 'Tosca' inherits that easygoing streak: once established, the shrub shrugs off heat, drought, and less-than-perfect soil, though full sun and sharp drainage bring out the best flowering.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, 'Tosca' belongs wherever late-summer color is wanted without the fragility of a tropical hibiscus. Use the shrub as a specimen, a flowering hedge, or a bold accent in a mixed border, and set the plant where the huge orchid-magenta flowers can be seen up close as the season tips toward fall. Quiet green neighbors and a plain backdrop let the eye and the carmine-centered blooms do the rest, turning the tail of summer into something close to high opera.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057882566771,"sku":"HIBI-PARA-SYRI-TOSC-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/A9D3A957-B3DF-4203-9C5F-B14E2EADE732.jpg?v=1780100148"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-grandiflorus","title":"Hibiscus grandiflorus","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHibiscus grandiflorus\u003c\/em\u003e, the swamp rose mallow, is a magnificent native perennial of the southeastern United States, grown for enormous soft-pink blooms and broad, velvety, gray-green leaves. Rising to eight or ten feet on stout stems, the plant brings a lush, almost tropical presence to the summer garden, at home in a wetland but just as striking in an ordinary bed or beside a pond.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the reason to grow the plant, and they carry a secret. Each bloom spans an impressive six to ten inches across, among the largest of any flower native to North America, pale to deep pink with a crimson eye and a column of yellow stamens at the center. And they keep unusual hours: the great blooms open in the evening and glow through the night, softly fragrant and luminous in moonlight, before fading the next day as fresh buds take over. Night-flying moths work the pale flowers in the dark, and hummingbirds and butterflies take the day shift.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe foliage is nearly as distinctive. Large, palmately lobed, maple-like leaves are cloaked in fine silvery hairs that give the whole plant a soft, gray-green, velvety look and lend one of the common names, velvet mallow. The species name \u003cem\u003egrandiflorus\u003c\/em\u003e means large-flowered, an honest label, and the plant belongs to the Malvaceae, the mallow family, alongside the other native rose mallows, hollyhocks, and cotton. Native range runs from southeastern Texas east to Florida and south to western Cuba, always in wet, low ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, use swamp rose mallow at the back of a large sunny border, at a pond or stream edge, in a rain garden, or wherever a bold vertical accent and evening bloom are wanted. Give full sun and moist to wet, fertile soil, and site the plant where the fragrant night flowers can be enjoyed after dark, near a patio, a path, or a window. Pair with other moisture-loving natives and late bloomers, allow room for the tall stems, and cut the frost-killed tops to the ground in late winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhoto courtesy of Alan Cressler\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057882763379,"sku":"HIBI-GRAN-01G","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Hibiscusgrandiflorus-AlanCressler1.jpg?v=1725496487"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-aculeatus","title":"Hibiscus aculeatus","description":"\u003cp\u003ePineland hibiscus is the wilder, pricklier cousin among the native mallows, and all the more charming for a slightly untamed look. Through the summer the plant opens broad flowers several inches across in soft creamy yellow, each centered on a deep maroon eye, the classic hibiscus form scaled down and set on a low, spreading, bristly frame. The deeply lobed leaves are rough to the touch and the stems carry fine prickles, so the whole plant reads as a hardy native of open, sunny ground rather than a pampered border hybrid.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant belongs to the Malvaceae, the mallow and hibiscus family, and the species name \u003cem\u003eaculeatus\u003c\/em\u003e, meaning prickly, records exactly the bristly texture that sets this species apart from the smoother native rose mallows. Pineland hibiscus is a plant of the southeastern Coastal Plain, native from Florida north to North Carolina, where the roots run in wet pine flatwoods, savannas, and the damp margins of roadside ditches. The common names, pineland hibiscus and savanna hibiscus, place the plant exactly in that open, sunny, seasonally wet country.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA third common name carries the ethnobotany: comfortroot. Indigenous peoples of the Southeast valued the thick, mucilaginous roots as a soothing demulcent, brewed into a preparation to ease sore, irritated throats, the slippery root mucilage coating and calming the way marshmallow root or slippery elm does. Woodlanders has written a fuller account of this history; you can \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/blogs\/news\/hibiscus-aculeatus-a-deep-dive-into-its-ethnobotanical-history\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eread the deep dive here\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, pineland hibiscus makes a fine, tough native for a sunny bed or border, a rain garden, a wet meadow, or a native and pollinator planting in the warmer zones, where the pale flowers draw bees and other pollinators through the heat of summer. Give full sun to part shade and moist to average, sandy or loamy soil, and let the plant weave among grasses and other Coastal Plain natives. One of many native plants little known in cultivation when first offered by Woodlanders, and still an uncommon pleasure.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057883123827,"sku":"HIBI-ACUL-01G","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/6C94338C-860C-408C-8D20-72276F3D193C.jpg?v=1725369456"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-coccineus","title":"Hibiscus coccineus","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHibiscus coccineus\u003c\/em\u003e, the scarlet rose mallow or Texas star hibiscus, is a tall, dramatic perennial native to the wetlands and swamps of the southern United States. Rising on strong, upright stems to six or ten feet, the plant lifts great scarlet stars above the summer garden, an American native that looks every bit as exotic as any tropical hibiscus and proves far tougher.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the whole argument. Each bloom opens three to five inches across in vivid, pure scarlet, five slightly separated petals arranged in a clean star, with the long staminal column thrust boldly from the center and tipped in bright yellow pollen. The show runs from mid-summer through early fall, and though each flower lasts a single day, the plant opens a steady succession over many weeks. Hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies all work the blooms, so the color comes with constant motion.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe foliage is nearly as talked-about as the flowers. Deeply cut into slender, palmate lobes, the leaves resemble those of a maple or, notoriously, of cannabis, a resemblance that has raised more than one eyebrow over a perfectly innocent native plant. Botanically this is a true mallow of the Malvaceae, and the species name \u003cem\u003ecoccineus\u003c\/em\u003e simply means scarlet, for the flowers. Upright and clean, the deep green leaves set off the red bloom to perfection.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, use scarlet rose mallow at the back of a large sunny border, at a pond or stream edge, in a rain garden, or anywhere a bold vertical accent and hot late-summer color are wanted. The plant grows naturally in very wet ground, along streams, ponds, and swamps, but adapts happily to ordinary well-drained garden soil given plenty of sun. Pair with other moisture-lovers and late bloomers, allow room for the tall stems, and cut the frost-killed tops to the ground in late winter for a fresh start each spring.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057883287667,"sku":"HIBI-COCC-01G","price":13.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Hibiscus_coccineus_Woodlanders_7.jpg?v=1725832529"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-palustris","title":"Hibiscus palustris","description":"\u003cp\u003eHibiscus palustris is the northern, cold-hardy face of the American rose-mallows, a marsh dweller whose species name comes straight from the Latin palus, a swamp or marsh. Botanists today often fold the plant into Hibiscus moscheutos as a subspecies, but the old name still travels with the pink-flowered marsh plants of the Northeast, and gardeners know exactly which plant the name marks. Where many tropical hibiscus sulk at the first frost, this perennial dies cleanly to the ground each winter and returns from a woody crown, unfazed by zone 5 cold.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough late summer the stout, upright stems open a run of broad pink flowers, each a satiny five-petaled saucer four to seven inches across, often with a deeper rose or crimson flush at the base of the petals. Every bloom lasts only a day or two, but the plants open in generous succession over many weeks. Breeders leaned hard on this native and the closely related rose-mallows to build the modern hardy hibiscus, the dinner-plate perennials now sold everywhere, so the wild parent stands quietly behind a whole nursery aisle of showier offspring.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe rose-mallows belong to Malvaceae, the mallow family, and share the family's mucilaginous, softening sap with true marshmallow, Althaea officinalis, whose roots once thickened the original confection. Across the plant's native range the mallows were among the soothing, demulcent herbs that early gardeners and Indigenous peoples valued for their slippery, cooling tissue, a folk association that runs through the whole clan rather than resting on this one species. Even the broad leaves and seed capsules carry that soft, faintly downy mallow texture.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor design, Hibiscus palustris solves the hardest corner in many gardens: the low, wet spot that stays soggy. Plant the rose-mallow at a pond edge, in a rain garden, along a ditch, or at the moist back of a border, where the tall stems and huge flowers can rise over Joe-Pye weed, swamp milkweed, and native sedges. Bees and hummingbirds work the flowers, and specialist bees depend on rose-mallows in particular. Because the plant emerges late in spring, set the crown among earlier perennials that cover the bare ground until the stems shoot up and take over the show.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057883385971,"sku":"HIBI-PALU-01G","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-661.jpg?v=1720138565"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-moscheutos","title":"Hibiscus moscheutos","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHibiscus moscheutos\u003c\/em\u003e, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe natural range is enormous, running through freshwater and brackish marshes across the eastern United States, from the Gulf Coast north into the lower Great Lakes and along the Atlantic seaboard, which explains the remarkable cold hardiness: rose mallow returns reliably from the roots into USDA zone 5 and even zone 4, far colder than any tropical hibiscus dares. The broad, ovate, sometimes shallowly lobed leaves are soft gray-green, pale and downy beneath, on strong upright stems.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA word on the names. Rose mallow is sometimes called marsh mallow, but the sweet and the old throat medicine of that name come from a different plant, the European \u003cem\u003eAlthaea officinalis\u003c\/em\u003e, so the shared name is a coincidence of habitat rather than kinship, though both sit in the Malvaceae. What rose mallow does have is a devoted pollinator: the rose-mallow bee, a specialist that gathers pollen almost exclusively from these flowers, works the blooms alongside bumblebees and hummingbirds through the summer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, use rose mallow at the back of a sunny border, in a rain garden, at a pond or stream edge, or anywhere a big, bold, native-hardy flower is wanted through the heat of summer. Give full sun and moist to wet, fertile soil, keep the roots from drying in high summer, and cut the frost-killed stems to the ground in late winter. The plant emerges late in spring, so mark the spot, and pair with other moisture-lovers and late bloomers that fill the early-season gap.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057883517043,"sku":"HIBI-MOSC-01G","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-660.jpg?v=1720138571"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-mutabilis-plena","title":"Hibiscus mutabilis 'Plena'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe name requires a brief clarification, and then we can move on to the more interesting parts. \u003cem\u003eHibiscus mutabilis\u003c\/em\u003e has been called the Confederate rose since the nineteenth century, when the plant naturalized so thoroughly in the gardens of the American South that people assumed it belonged there. The plant does not. The species belongs to Hunan Province in China, where gardeners have grown the shrub for nearly three thousand years, where the flower serves as the emblem of Chengdu, a city known on its account as the City of Hibiscus, and where classical texts on materia medica describe the flowers and leaves in medicinal detail. The name stuck here out of regional habit rather than botanical or historical accuracy, and the plant is indifferent to the label.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat 'Plena' actually is: a fully double-flowered form of one of the most theatrically interesting shrubs available to Southern gardeners. The flowers of \u003cem\u003eH. mutabilis\u003c\/em\u003e change color over the course of a single day, driven by a steady accumulation of anthocyanins in the petals. A bloom opens white in the morning, blushes pink by midday, and deepens to rose-red by evening. In the straight species each flower lasts a day before dropping; in 'Plena' the fully double, peony-form flowers hold longer, and the layered petals make the color shift more gradual and more visible. On a mature plant in October you will find all three colors at once on the same shrub, white, pink, and red in various stages of the day's progression. The effect is anything but subtle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe shrub is fast-growing and substantial. In the Deep South the plant can reach ten feet or more in a single season, carrying large, palmately lobed leaves with a soft, slightly fuzzy texture that lends a lush, almost tropical character. In zone 7 the top dies to the ground in winter and returns vigorously from the roots each spring; in zone 8 and warmer the plant grows effectively woody and persistent. Either way, the space is well earned.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond the spectacle, the plant carries a long ethnobotanical history: in traditional Chinese medicine the leaves and flowers, known as Fu Rong, have been used for centuries in cooling poultices and washes for burns, boils, and skin inflammation. In the garden, give 'Plena' full sun and rich, moist, well-drained soil at the back of a large border or as a specimen with room to spread, and enjoy a shrub that saves the finest show for autumn, when so much else has finished.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057883910259,"sku":"HIBI-MUTA-PLEN-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-374.jpg?v=1720138583"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-cubensis","title":"Hibiscus cubensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eCuban 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name tells only half the story. This is indeed the Cuban hibiscus, native to the island, but the plant also turns up, surprisingly, in a few natural stands along the Texas Gulf Coast, one of those quiet distributional puzzles that make the genus interesting. A true mallow of the Malvaceae, Cuban rose mallow grows wild in marshy, low-lying ground, yet takes readily to ordinary garden soil, and remains little known in cultivation, perhaps first offered to American gardeners by Woodlanders.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn leaf and flower the plant carries a slightly wild, informal character that suits a naturalistic setting. The gray-green cast of the foliage sets the species apart from the greener native rose mallows, and the prickly stems and marsh-edge origins mark a plant built for open, sunny, seasonally damp ground rather than a pampered border. The purplish-pink flowers draw bees and other pollinators through the heat of summer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, give Cuban rose mallow full sun to part shade in moist to average soil, at the back of a sunny border, along a pond or ditch, in a rain garden, or in any bed that welcomes a tall, seasonal accent. The plant dies back in winter and returns quickly from the crown each spring, growing fast to flowering height. Pair with other rose mallows and moisture-loving perennials, and site where the tall stems have room to stand.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057884008563,"sku":"HIBI-CUBE-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/A9782A80-F0A1-468E-81B7-B59B21A6F8CD.jpg?v=1751647062"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-x-sp-peppermint-flare","title":"Hibiscus x sp. 'Peppermint Flare'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Peppermint Flare' comes with a well-documented pedigree, which is rare for a hardy hibiscus. The plant arose as a sport, a spontaneous mutation, of the hibiscus 'Flare', a nearly sterile rose-mallow hybrid bred by Dr. Sam McFadden and released through the University of Florida. The Texas horticulturist Greg Grant spotted and selected the peppermint-striped form, and in 2010 the plant was named a Texas Superstar, the designation reserved for tough, proven performers in the Southern heat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name does the describing. Each flower opens enormous, eight to ten inches across, on petals of the palest pink to near white, finely streaked and flecked with scarlet and centered on a deep red eye, the whole effect like a swirl of peppermint candy. The blooms are among the largest of any hardy perennial, and though every one lasts just a day or two, the plants open in long succession from midsummer well into fall on a comparatively short frame of four to five feet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBehind the show stands Hibiscus moscheutos, the native rose-mallow of American marshes and riverbanks, which lends the hybrid both hardiness and a fondness for moisture. That native parentage places 'Peppermint Flare' in the mallow family alongside cotton, okra, and the marshmallows, the soft, mucilaginous herbs of old kitchen gardens. Like the wild rose-mallows, the plant is happiest with steady water and will grow in genuinely wet ground that would rot most perennials.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, 'Peppermint Flare' wants to be seen. Set the plant at the back of a sunny border, beside a pond or in a rain garden, or anywhere a single bold perennial can anchor the late-summer scene, and pair the striped giants with simple green and blue-green companions that keep the peppermint flowers from having to compete. The stems die to the ground in winter and emerge late in spring, so tuck earlier perennials nearby to hold the space until the show returns.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057884139635,"sku":"HIBI-X-PEPP-FLAI-01G","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2023.jpg?v=1720138593"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-dasycalyx","title":"Hibiscus dasycalyx","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHibiscus dasycalyx\u003c\/em\u003e is one of the rarest wildflowers in the country, described only in 1968, and even then from a mere handful of sites in the bottomlands of east Texas, in Houston, Trinity, and Cherokee counties, along the Neches, Angelina, and Trinity rivers. The total wild population has been estimated in the low thousands. Whole seasons of botanical fieldwork across the Southeast have turned up fewer plants than a single good nursery bed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Neches River rose mallow lives in a strange and specific habitat: seasonally flooded sloughs and oxbow margins, often threaded through the pimple-mound microtopography peculiar to east Texas bottomlands. The plants stand in spring floodwater for weeks, then ride out August on cracked clay. Multiple stems rise from a thick woody base to four or five feet, carrying the narrow, linear leaves that tell this species apart at a glance from the showier rose mallows. Saucer-sized flowers open one at a time from midsummer, ivory white with a deep maroon throat, the calyx behind them softly hairy, which is exactly what the name records: \u003cem\u003edasycalyx\u003c\/em\u003e means hairy cup.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe threats are habitat loss, of course, but also something quieter and genetic. \u003cem\u003eHibiscus laevis\u003c\/em\u003e is common, aggressive, and hybridizes freely wherever the two ranges touch, diluting the \u003cem\u003edasycalyx\u003c\/em\u003e line within a few generations; some botanists consider this the more pressing danger. Federally listed as threatened in 2013, the Neches River rose mallow cannot cross state lines, so sales are restricted to South Carolina and in-person purchase only.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor all that rarity, the plant is easy and rewarding in cultivation. Give full sun and moist to wet soil, and treat the Neches River rose mallow as a bottomland native at heart, equally at home in a rain garden, at a pond margin, or in a regularly watered border. Growing a nursery plant keeps a threatened species alive and in circulation, and the narrow leaves and clean ivory flowers bring a quiet, unusual grace to a wet, sunny corner. Pair with other moisture-loving natives, and grow well away from other perennial hibiscus to keep the line pure.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057884303475,"sku":"HIBI-DASY-01G","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/EE3D9943-951E-4E9F-909E-F428FBA5E616.jpg?v=1778094195"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-coccineus-lone-star","title":"Hibiscus coccineus ‘Lone Star’","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHibiscus coccineus\u003c\/em\u003e '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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe selection has a name and a maker. 'Lone Star' was introduced by the Houston plantswoman Heidi Sheesley of Treesearch Farms, who spotted and selected this white-flowered form out of the native scarlet swamp mallow, then brought the plant into the trade. A garden selection of a tough American wetland native, 'Lone Star' pairs cultivated refinement with wild resilience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant is a true mallow of the Malvaceae, native in origin to the swampy soils of the southeastern United States, and behaves just as vigorously as the red species. Strong, upright stems reach six to eight feet, clothed in the deeply cut, palmate leaves that give the whole tribe a tropical, almost hand-shaped look. The blooms open in steady succession from mid-summer into early fall, each lasting a day, and draw hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies to the white stars.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, use 'Lone Star' at the back of a perennial border, at the edge of a pond or water feature, in a rain garden, or as a luminous focal point where the white flowers can catch evening light. The plant favors full sun and moist, well-drained ground, and though happiest with steady moisture, shows a fair drought tolerance once established. Pair with other moisture-lovers and late bloomers, give room for the tall stems, and cut the frost-killed tops to the ground in late winter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057884336243,"sku":"HIBI-COCC-LONE-STAR-01G","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Hibiscus_coccineus_Lone_Star_Woodlanders_4.jpg?v=1725832582"},{"product_id":"hibiscus-mutabilis-rubrum","title":"Hibiscus mutabilis 'Rubrum'","description":"\u003cp\u003eHibiscus mutabilis has been grown in Southern gardens for so long that many people assume the shrub is a native, though the species traces to southern China, where gardeners prized the flowers centuries before the plant traveled west. The species name mutabilis, meaning changeable, describes the wild trick of the ordinary Confederate Rose, whose blooms open white in the morning and deepen to pink and then rose-red by evening. 'Rubrum' skips the performance and commits: the single flowers arrive already a saturated rose-red and hold that one deep tone through the day rather than shifting. For gardeners who love the late-season drama of the Confederate Rose but want a single, unwavering color, 'Rubrum' is the selection to plant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe shrub belongs to the mallow family, Malvaceae, and shares that clan's signature: a prominent central column of fused stamens rising from the throat of a broad, five-petaled flower. Cotton, okra, and hollyhock are all cousins, and the kinship shows in the softly downy, maple-shaped leaves and the fuzzy seed capsules that earned the alternate common name, Cotton Rose. In the Deep South, 'Rubrum' builds into a large, multi-stemmed shrub of six to eight feet in a single season, flowering in the shortening days of late summer and fall when much of the garden has already gone quiet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond ornament, Hibiscus mutabilis carries a long medicinal history in China, where the plant is known as Mu Fu Rong. Traditional practitioners used the cooling leaves and flowers as poultices for burns, boils, and inflamed skin, and brewed them for coughs and respiratory complaints. Modern laboratory work has taken an interest in these old uses, isolating anti-inflammatory flavonoids from the flowers and an antiviral compound, tiliroside, from the plant, lending some scientific texture to a tradition many centuries old.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, give 'Rubrum' room and a backdrop. The tall, upright shrub reads best from a slight distance, at the back of a sunny border or as a freestanding specimen where the autumn flowers can carry the eye across the yard. Late-blooming salvias, ornamental grasses at mature height, and anything with a quiet green or silver leaf make good neighbors, since the rose-red flowers want a calm setting rather than competition. In the colder end of the range the shrub may die back to the ground in winter and return from the roots, so pair the plant with something that fills the early-season gap. If the common name Confederate Rose sits uneasily, Cotton Rose is the older, equally accurate alternative, and either name points to the same generous, late-flowering shrub.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057884434547,"sku":"HIBI-MUTA-RUBR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Hibiscusmutabilis_Rubrum_Woodlanders1.jpg?v=1731692344"},{"product_id":"holmskoldia-sanguinea","title":"Holmskioldia sanguinea","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom 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 \u003cem\u003esanguinea\u003c\/em\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flower is the whole performance, and it helps to understand what you are actually seeing. Each bloom opens as a broad circular calyx, flat and faintly cupped like a little Mandarin hat, and from the center of that saucer a slender tube of true flower leans forward. The tube does its brief work and drops. The hat stays. That colored calyx holds on for weeks afterward, so plants in good form read as flowering far longer than they technically are, which is a fine quality in something that waits until fall to perform. Most run orange to scarlet, though yellow and bronze forms turn up as well.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe leaves are slim and mid-green, several inches long, drawn to a long tip with a lightly toothed edge, set opposite or in whorls along willowy stems. Left to their own devices they sprawl. Given a fence, a trellis, or a warm wall they climb and arch, and can be trained almost flat, espalier-fashion, into something deliberate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey want zones 9 and 10, full sun, and soil that drains. In a sheltered pocket of zone 8 they will freeze to the ground over winter and rise again to flower the following fall, which asks a little patience and tends to repay it. When the blooms arrive, hummingbirds and butterflies find the wall before you do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a long, mild autumn, against a wall they have been allowed to climb, they hang the fading season with small orange hats long after the rest of the garden has called it a year.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdditional photos courtesy of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.mozambiqueflora.com\/cult\/species.php?species_id=176130\"\u003eKT Wursten\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057884762227,"sku":"HOLM-SANG-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Holmskioldiasanguinea_BT_Wursten1.jpg?v=1723393914"},{"product_id":"hosta-tardiflora","title":"Hosta longipes 'Tardiflora'","description":"\u003cp\u003eHosta 'Tardiflora' announces the best trait in the name itself: tardiflora means late-flowering, and this small Japanese hosta is very nearly the last of the tribe to bloom, lifting lavender flowers in fall when most hostas have already finished and begun to tire. The plant traces back to the wild Hosta longipes, the long-stalked giboshi of Japan's rocky mountain slopes, where the species clings to cliffs and streambanks; 'Tardiflora' is a distinct, late seedling form long grown as a garden plant in its own right.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant is a study in neatness. Small, lance-shaped leaves of a deep, glossy green build a tight, low mound barely a foot high, each leaf carried on a petiole flushed with red at the base. Where big blue hostas sprawl and, at the first cold night of autumn, collapse into mush, 'Tardiflora' stays crisp and shapely well into fall, holding form just as the flowers arrive. The glossy leaf surface also sheds water and shrugs off much of the tattering that plagues thinner-leaved hostas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat combination of late bloom and tidy substance made 'Tardiflora' a prize in the hands of breeders. In England, Eric Smith crossed the plant with the blue-leaved Hosta 'Elegans' to found the celebrated Tardiana group, the source of many of the best small blue hostas in gardens today, including old favorites like 'Halcyon'. For a plant so modest in stature, 'Tardiflora' casts a long shadow across the modern hosta world, standing quietly behind a whole lineage of garden selections.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Japan, hostas are more than ornament: the tightly furled spring shoots of several species, known as urui, are gathered and eaten as a seasonal vegetable, a reminder that these shade plants have long shared human ground. In the garden, put 'Tardiflora' to work at the front of a shady bed, as edging along a woodland path, or in a tight drift where the fall flowers and glossy leaves close out the season. Ferns, small sedges, and epimediums make easy companions, and the late lavender scapes give bees one more visit before frost. Slugs and deer both admire hostas, so a sharp-draining site and a watchful eye help keep the mound pristine.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057884827763,"sku":"HOST-LONG-TARD-01G","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-662.jpg?v=1720138625"},{"product_id":"hosta-yingeri","title":"Hosta yingeri","description":"\u003cp\u003eHosta yingeri is one of the more recent hostas to reach gardens and one of the most distinct, a species found only on a scatter of rocky islands in the Huksan Archipelago off the southwestern coast of Korea. The American plantsman Barry Yinger collected the plant on Taehuksan Island in 1985, and the botanist Samuel B. Jones formally named the species in 1989 in Yinger's honor. For a genus most gardeners associate with the woodlands of Japan, this Korean islander broadened the family map.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat sets the plant apart is a hard, lacquered shine. The elliptic leaves are thick and almost succulent, a deep to medium green polished to a gloss on top and a pale grey-green beneath, built to endure sun-warmed rock and salt wind. Rather than the soft, quilted mounds of a classic blue hosta, this Korean species forms a low, tidy rosette barely a foot high, more chiseled than billowy, holding a clean shape through the season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the real surprise. Where most hostas hang their bells to one side of the stem, Hosta yingeri spaces near-radial, star-shaped purple flowers evenly all the way around the scape in late summer, with an unusually long second set of stamens giving each bloom a spidery, almost orchid-like poise. Bees work the flowers, and the airy purple spikes rise well above the glossy leaves just as the summer garden starts to tire.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike other hostas, the plant belongs to a long tradition of shade gardening across East Asia, where the tightly rolled spring shoots of several species, called urui in Japan, are gathered as a seasonal vegetable. In the garden, Hosta yingeri earns a spot at the front of a shady bed, tucked into a shaded rock garden, or edging a woodland path where the polished leaves can catch what little light reaches them. Ferns, sedges, and epimediums make natural companions, and the glossy, substantial foliage shrugs off much of the slug damage that plagues thinner-leaved hostas, though deer will still browse a tender clump.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057884926067,"sku":"HOST-YING-01G","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1305.jpg?v=1720138629"},{"product_id":"hydrangea-arborescens-annabelle","title":"Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Annabelle' is a wild American shrub with a hometown. Around 1910 two sisters, Harriet and Amy Kirkpatrick, spotted an unusually full-flowered smooth hydrangea in the woods of Union County, Illinois, dug the plant, and grew it in their garden in the town of Anna. For half a century the shrub passed hand to hand around southern Illinois as a nameless local treasure, until the University of Illinois plantsman Dr. Joseph C. McDaniel traced the trail back to Anna in the 1960s, selected the plant, and released it for sale in 1962. The name 'Annabelle' honors both the town and the Kirkpatrick belles who found the shrub: Anna plus belle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBehind the cultivar stands Hydrangea arborescens, the smooth hydrangea native to woodland slopes and streambanks across the eastern United States. 'Annabelle' is simply the most famous garden selection of that native, a deciduous shrub of three to five feet, wider than tall, that opens enormous rounded heads of creamy white sterile florets, snowballs the size of a dinner plate, in early summer. The heads age softly to green and can be cut for drying. Michael Dirr, the dean of American woody-plant horticulture, remembered McDaniel as a true plantsman and gentleman, and 'Annabelle' remains the shrub's quiet monument.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species carries a deep ethnobotanical history under an older name, Seven-bark, so called for the way the stems peel in successive layers of color. Cherokee, Creek, and other southeastern peoples used the root and root bark as a diuretic and a remedy for kidney and bladder stones, a tradition later taken up by the Eclectic physicians of the nineteenth century, and the plant earned the folk name kidney-bush along the way. The leaves and buds, by contrast, contain cyanide-releasing compounds and are not for eating, a reminder that this is a plant with a serious past rather than a garnish.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, 'Annabelle' is generous and forgiving. Because the shrub flowers on new wood, a hard late-winter cut to a foot or so returns bigger blooms without any risk to the show, making this one of the most reliable hydrangeas for cold gardens where old-wood types freeze out. Give the plant good soil that stays moist, a little afternoon shade in hot regions, and room to spread into a low colony. The white heads light up a shady border, a foundation planting, or the edge of a woodland, and the strongest stems hold the flowers up after summer rain.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057885417587,"sku":"HYDR-ARBO-ANNA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-380.jpg?v=1720138645"},{"product_id":"hydrangea-macrophylla-all-summer-beauty","title":"Hydrangea macrophylla ‘All Summer Beauty’","description":"\u003cp\u003e'All Summer Beauty' answers the oldest complaint about mophead hydrangeas: that a single hard freeze or an eager pruner can wipe out a whole season of bloom. Where classic bigleaf hydrangeas flower only on old wood, this compact selection, three to four feet high and wide, blooms on both old and new growth, so the rounded heads keep coming through the season and return even after a winter that kills the older stems. The name is a promise the plant generally keeps.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHydrangea macrophylla, the bigleaf or French hydrangea, came to Western gardens from Japan and remains the hydrangea most people picture: glossy, serrated leaves and dense mophead clusters of sterile florets. 'All Summer Beauty' carries the family's famous party trick, flowers that read the soil. In acid ground the blooms turn clear blue, in alkaline ground they shift to pink, and the color can be nudged either way by adding sulfur for blue or garden lime for pink. Few garden plants wear their soil chemistry so openly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species has a quiet ceremonial life in Japan, where a closely allied sweet-leaved hydrangea furnishes amacha, a sweet tea brewed from fermented leaves and poured over statues of the Buddha each spring to mark his birthday. The ornamental mopheads are not that tea plant, and hydrangea leaves in general contain cyanide-releasing compounds and should not be eaten, but the association gives the genus a gentle place in the culture of its homeland beyond mere decoration.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, 'All Summer Beauty' suits the smaller border, the foundation planting, and the large container, and the bigleaf clan's noted tolerance of salt air makes the shrub a fixture of seaside gardens. Give the plant morning sun and afternoon shade in hot regions, steady moisture, and shelter from drying wind. Deadheading spent globes encourages a fresh flush, and a mass of the blue or pink heads reads beautifully against a dark wall, a hedge, or the green of a shaded bed.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057885712499,"sku":"HYDR-MACR-ALL-SUMM-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-381.jpg?v=1720138658"},{"product_id":"hydrangea-x-preziosa-pink-beauty","title":"Hydrangea x 'Preziosa'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Preziosa' is a small, jewel-like hydrangea with a tangled pedigree and an unusual gift. Raised in Germany from the nursery tradition of Georg Arends and introduced around 1961, the shrub is a hybrid of Hydrangea serrata and Hydrangea macrophylla, and catalogs list the plant under all three names depending on which parent they favor. Whatever the label, 'Preziosa' behaves like a compact mophead, three to four feet high and wide, built for a smaller garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the reason to grow this shrub. Small, rounded mophead clusters of sterile florets open pale and cream, then move through pink to cherry-red and finally to a deep wine-red as summer turns to fall. Unlike the familiar bigleaf hydrangeas, whose color answers the soil, 'Preziosa' runs through this progression more or less regardless of pH, so the multicolored effect turns up in almost any garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant is well dressed even between color changes. The serrate leaves emerge flushed with purple, mature to green, and return to red and purple tints in fall, and the whole shrub is carried on dark maroon stems that set off the shifting flower color. 'Preziosa' also brings better winter hardiness than many mopheads, reliable to zone 5, which widens the range where a color-changing hydrangea can be grown.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCompact size makes 'Preziosa' easy to place: a small shaded border, a foundation planting, a large container, or the front of a mixed bed where the changing heads can be watched week to week. Give the plant rich, evenly moist, well-drained soil in part shade, with full sun allowed only where the soil stays reliably moist. A little afternoon shade in hot regions keeps the flowers and the dark stems at their best.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057885745267,"sku":"HYDR-PREZ-PINK-BEAU-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-391.jpg?v=1720138662"},{"product_id":"hydrangea-macrophylla-mariesii","title":"Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Mariesii’","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Mariesii' is a piece of hydrangea history still in commerce. In the late 1870s the English plant hunter Charles Maries, collecting in Japan for the famous Veitch nursery, sent home the first lacecap hydrangea to reach the West, at a time when European gardeners knew only the round mopheads. That introduction, named 'Mariesii' in his honor, opened Western eyes to the wild, flat-topped grace of the lacecap and became the parent of a whole line of classic cultivars, among them 'Mariesii Grandiflora', 'Mariesii Lilacina', and the blue 'Mariesii Perfecta'.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere a mophead crowds every flower into a solid ball, a lacecap tells the truth about how the flower head is built. Hydrangea macrophylla 'Mariesii' spreads a flat, delicate plate of tiny fertile flowers across the center, then rings the edge with a lace of large, showy, sterile florets, the whole effect airier and more naturalistic than the mophead. Like all bigleaf hydrangeas, the plant reads the soil: acid ground turns the florets blue, alkaline ground shifts them toward pink, and gardeners can steer the color with sulfur or lime.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe bigleaf hydrangeas carry a quiet cultural history in their Japanese homeland, where a sweet-leaved relative yields amacha, the fermented-leaf tea poured over images of the Buddha each spring; the ornamental garden forms are not that tea plant, and hydrangea foliage should not be eaten. Unlike the wholly sterile mopheads, the lacecap's true flowers at the center offer nectar and pollen, so 'Mariesii' earns the visits of bees and other pollinators that a snowball hydrangea cannot.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, 'Mariesii' brings an old-fashioned, woodland-edge softness that the mopheads lack. Set the shrub in a shaded border, along a path, or against a dark backdrop of evergreens where the pale lacecaps seem to float, and give the plant morning sun with afternoon shade in hot climates. Trim faded heads to tidy the shrub and coax a later flush, keep the soil moist, and hold the pH below six if a true blue is the goal. Four to six feet high and wide, the shrub settles easily into a mixed planting without taking over.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057885876339,"sku":"HYDR-MACR-MARI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-383.jpg?v=1720138668"},{"product_id":"hydrangea-quercifolia-alice","title":"Hydrangea quercifolia 'Alice'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe oakleaf hydrangea is the great four-season native shrub of the American Southeast, and 'Alice' is one of the grandest selections of the species. Hydrangea quercifolia grows wild in the rich woods and ravines of a small range centered on Alabama and Mississippi, where the naturalist William Bartram found the shrub in the 1770s and called it singular and beautiful. Alabama later made the oakleaf hydrangea the official state wildflower, a rare honor for a plant that earns attention in every season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Alice' came from the University of Georgia campus, selected by Michael Dirr, the most influential woody-plant horticulturist of his generation. The result is a very large shrub, ten to twelve feet high and as wide, that carries some of the longest flower panicles of any oakleaf, white cones ten to fourteen inches long that open in early summer, age to soft rose, and dry to warm tan on the branch. Few native shrubs give so much scale and presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name quercifolia means oak-leaved, and the big, deeply lobed leaves are the plant's other signature, dark green through summer and turning deep burgundy-red, purple, and bronze in fall, holding that color for weeks. When the leaves finally drop, 'Alice' reveals cinnamon bark that peels in papery sheets, so the shrub stays handsome straight through winter. Flowers, foliage, and bark give four distinct seasons of interest from a single plant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive 'Alice' room to become the large, rounded specimen the shrub wants to be, at the corner of a house, along a woodland edge, or as the anchor of a shaded shrub border. Fertile, moist, well-drained soil suits the plant best, in shade or half shade, or even full sun where mulch and water keep the roots cool. The fertile flowers within the panicles draw bees and butterflies, and the whole shrub reads beautifully against evergreens or a wall that shows off the white summer cones and the burgundy of fall.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057886105715,"sku":"HYDR-QUER-ALIC-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-387.jpg?v=1720138671"},{"product_id":"hydrangea-quercifolia-harmony","title":"Hydrangea quercifolia 'Harmony'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe oakleaf hydrangea is the great four-season native shrub of the American Southeast, a large deciduous plant with oak-like leaves, white summer panicles, and peeling cinnamon bark. Hydrangea quercifolia grows wild in the rich woods of a small range centered on Alabama, where the naturalist William Bartram admired the shrub in the 1770s, and where the oakleaf is now the official state wildflower. 'Harmony' is one of the boldest selections the species has produced.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Harmony' carries one of the better origin stories in the oakleaf world. The shrub was discovered in a church cemetery near Rainbow City, Alabama, by the father of the plantsman Joe McDaniel, and later introduced to the trade by Eddie Aldridge and his father. What makes 'Harmony' unmistakable is the flower: enormous, dense heads of sterile florets, packed up to a foot long, so heavy they arch the branches under their own weight.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThose massive heads divide opinion. 'Harmony' has both ardent admirers, who love the sheer abundance, and detractors who find the heavy, solid cones a little too much of a good thing. Either way the shrub delivers the rest of the oakleaf package: big, deeply lobed leaves that turn burgundy and bronze in fall, and cinnamon bark that peels away for winter interest once the leaves drop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite 'Harmony' where the weighty white heads can be seen and where the arching branches have room, at a woodland edge, in a large shaded border, or against a green backdrop that sets off the white. Fertile, moist, well-drained soil in shade or part shade suits the shrub, or full sun with mulch and steady water. Prune only just after flowering, since the plant sets the coming year's buds on old wood.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057886204019,"sku":"HYDR-QUER-HARM-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/HydrangeaquercufoliaHarmonyWoodlanders-4.jpg?v=1750639500"},{"product_id":"hydrangea-quercifolia-snowflake","title":"Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snowflake'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe oakleaf hydrangea is the great four-season native shrub of the American Southeast, a large deciduous plant with oak-like leaves, white summer panicles, and peeling cinnamon bark. Hydrangea quercifolia grows wild in the rich woods of a small range centered on Alabama, where the naturalist William Bartram admired the shrub in the 1770s, and where the oakleaf now serves as the state wildflower. 'Snowflake' is one of our favorites, and one of the most distinctive oakleafs ever selected.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFound and named by Eddie Aldridge of Aldridge Gardens in Hoover, Alabama, 'Snowflake' carries double flowers: each sterile floret sits layered behind another in overlapping, imbricated bracts, so the long fifteen-inch panicles look stacked and full, like drifts of snow caught on the branch. As the flowers age they take on rose and antique-pink tints, and the doubled bracts hold on far longer than a single-flowered oakleaf.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBehind the flowers stands the rest of the oakleaf's four-season show. The big, oak-lobed leaves turn deep red, purple, and bronze in fall and hang on for weeks, and the cinnamon bark peels in papery curls once the leaves drop, keeping the shrub handsome through winter. Now widely grown in Southern gardens, 'Snowflake' has earned the reputation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe long, heavy panicles show best where they can be seen up close and given room, at a woodland edge, in a large shaded border, or beside a path. Plant 'Snowflake' in fertile, moist, well-drained soil in shade or part shade, or full sun with mulch and steady water, and prune only just after flowering, since next year's buds form on old wood. Against a dark green backdrop the white doubled cones seem to glow.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057886269555,"sku":"HYDR-QUER-SNOW-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-389.jpg?v=1720138678"},{"product_id":"hydrangea-serrata-woodlander","title":"Hydrangea serrata 'Woodlander'","description":"\u003cp\u003eHydrangea serrata 'Woodlander' is a Woodlanders introduction with a story, a compact, small-leaved mountain hydrangea grown from seed collected at the Chollipo Arboretum in Korea and selected here for real garden charm. Daintier than the big bigleaf hydrangeas, this is a refined shrub of two to four feet, carrying flat lacecap flower heads of clear blue in acid soil, ringed with showy sterile florets around a center of tiny fertile ones. The serrated leaves take on a handsome purplish cast that deepens toward autumn.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike all the mountain hydrangeas, the color of the flowers answers to the soil: blue where the ground is acid, as it is in the Woodlanders beds, and shifting toward pink where the soil turns alkaline. The lacecap form is more than pretty, for the ring of fertile florets at the heart of each head draws bees and other pollinators that the sterile mophead hydrangeas leave hungry. Bloom comes in early summer, on wood formed the year before.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis little hydrangea has grown well for us in semi-shade, in well-drained, acid soil with steady moisture and a bit of irrigation through dry spells. Hardier and more sun-forgiving than the bigleaf kinds, the mountain hydrangeas still bloom on old wood, so prune only right after flowering, and site the plant where late frosts are less likely to nip the buds. In autumn the small leaves flush red and purple, a quiet last act.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet Hydrangea serrata 'Woodlander' in a shaded or part-shaded border, a woodland edge, a foundation planting, or a large container, where the blue lacecaps and purplish foliage can be enjoyed at close range. Compact and well-mannered, the plant suits small gardens and mixed shade plantings, and the fertile florets keep the bees coming all through the bloom. For a refined, pollinator-friendly hydrangea with a real Woodlanders pedigree, this seed-grown selection is a quiet gem.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057886597235,"sku":"HYDR-SERR-WOOD-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Hydrangeaserrata_Woodlander_BrokenArrow.jpg?v=1784324885"},{"product_id":"hydrangea-quercifolia-alison","title":"Hydrangea quercifolia 'Alison'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Alison' is a sister selection to the famous 'Alice,' both drawn from the same native species by the same discerning eye. Hydrangea quercifolia, the oakleaf hydrangea, grows wild in the rich woods of a small Southeastern range centered on Alabama, where the naturalist William Bartram admired the shrub in the 1770s and where the oakleaf now serves as Alabama's official state wildflower. Of all the native shrubs of the region, few offer so much across so many seasons.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMichael Dirr selected 'Alison' on the University of Georgia campus, alongside 'Alice,' and the two make an instructive pair. Where 'Alice' grows tall and grand, 'Alison' spreads broader and more horizontal, a large shrub with long white panicles held over wide, arching branches. The flowers open white in early summer, blush to rose as they age, and the plant finishes the year in excellent burgundy-red fall color.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe deeply lobed, oak-like leaves that give the species its name turn deep red, purple, and bronze in autumn and hang on for weeks, and when they drop the peeling cinnamon bark keeps the winter shrub interesting. 'Alison' offers the full oakleaf sequence, white cones in summer, burning foliage in fall, and exfoliating bark in winter, on a frame built more for breadth than height.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe spreading habit makes 'Alison' a natural for covering ground along a woodland edge, softening the base of a wall, or filling a broad, half-shaded bed where the arching branches can reach out. Give the shrub fertile, moist, well-drained soil in shade or part shade, or full sun with mulch and water, and let the fertile flowers feed bees and butterflies through summer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhotos courtesy of Dr. Michael Dirr.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057887154291,"sku":"HYDR-QUER-ALIS-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/hydrangeaquercifoliaalisonflowernca.jpg?v=1724266925"},{"product_id":"hymenocallis-liriosme","title":"Hymenocallis liriosme","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew native bulbs command a wet margin the way Hymenocallis liriosme does. From a basal fountain of arching, strap-shaped, glossy green leaves rise leafless scapes, each crowned with several large white flowers whose narrow segments splay outward like pale spider legs around a central membranous cup. The fragrance arrives at dusk, sweet and carrying, a signal to the night-flying moths that pollinate the blooms in late spring and early summer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name carries the flower's signature. Hymenocallis joins the Greek hymen, a membrane, with kallos, beauty, a nod to the thin translucent tissue that webs the stamens into a shallow crown, the feature that separates a true spider lily from the many look-alikes. The epithet liriosme reads as lily-scented, from lirion and osme, and the plant earns the name honestly on a warm evening. Gardeners across the Gulf know the plant as spring spiderlily or Texas spiderlily, though the range runs well beyond Texas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHymenocallis liriosme belongs to the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, alongside crinum, rain lily, and the ornamental daffodils, and shares that clan's chemistry: the bulbs are laced with alkaloids that make them unpalatable to grazers and toxic if eaten, a quiet defense that has let wild colonies persist in ditches and low prairies. The plant is native across the south-central United States, from Texas and Oklahoma east through Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama, where the bulbs settle into the edges of marshes, swamps, sloughs, and slow streams, growing lush through a wet spring and resting through a dry summer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden the spring spiderlily asks for the conditions the bulbs know best: a low, wet spot that floods in spring and dries somewhat later, the margin of a pond, a rain garden, or a bog bed in full sun to part shade. Give the bulbs room to clump and they will thicken into a fragrant colony. Louisiana iris, swamp hibiscus, canna, and rain lilies make natural companions in the same damp ground, and a stand set near a path or seating area repays the placement each evening the flowers open.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057887449203,"sku":"HYME-LIRI-01G","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Hymenocallisliriosme_Smith_RW.jpg?v=1723396731"},{"product_id":"hypericum-densiflorum","title":"Hypericum densiflorum","description":"\u003cp\u003eHypericum densiflorum earns the name densiflorum, densely flowered, in high summer, when the twiggy shrub disappears under rounded clusters of small golden flowers, each one a starburst of fine stamens above five clean yellow petals. Bees work the blooms from July into September, and as the show fades the narrow dark green leaves turn a warm yellow, giving way in winter to reddish, lightly peeling bark on the older stems.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe common name reaches back to the old world and the Midsummer feast of Saint John the Baptist on the twenty-fourth of June, when the European kin of this shrub, Hypericum perforatum, comes into bloom. Country folk hung the flowering sprigs above doorways and holy images to turn away storms and ill spirits, and the genus name records the custom: Hypericum joins the Greek hyper, above, with eikon, an image. The native American species carry the name and something of the reputation, and several were minor remedies of Cherokee and settler households in the past, valued as astringents and wound herbs, though the celebrated medicinal St. John's Wort remains the European plant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild Hypericum densiflorum ranges across the eastern United States and west into Texas, keeping to acidic ground: the seepy edges of streams and ponds, wet meadows, and boggy flats, though the shrub will also colonize surprisingly dry, open sites. Spreading quietly by underground stolons, a single plant thickens over time into a dense twiggy colony, which is exactly the habit that makes the species useful where a gardener wants cover rather than a lone specimen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet in a sunny to lightly shaded bed, bushy St. John's Wort reads as a rounded, leafy mound taller than wide, an easy anchor for a moist border, a rain garden, or the transition between lawn and pond. The summer flowers arrive when many shrubs have finished, so a group carries color through the quiet middle of the season and feeds pollinators while doing so. Pair the shrub with buttonbush, swamp azalea, winterberry, and native grasses in damp ground, or let a colony hold a difficult wet bank unaided.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057887481971,"sku":"HYPE-DENS-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-393.jpg?v=1720138709"},{"product_id":"hypericum-lloydii","title":"Hypericum lloydii","description":"\u003cp\u003eHypericum lloydii is one of the fine-textured St. John's Worts, a low, wiry evergreen shrub clothed in needle-like leaves so slender that the plant carries a heathery, almost coniferous look. Through the summer the stems light up with showy yellow flowers, each a shallow cup packed with stamens, held above foliage that stays green through the year.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species wears two very different faces, and Woodlanders offers the less familiar of the pair. In the sandhills of South Carolina the plant grows on dry, open sand as a very low, usually prostrate mat. Just to the west, on the heavier Piedmont clay, grows a far more upright form that builds into a dense shrub a couple of feet tall, and that is the plant offered here, a form we are not aware of having been sold before.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild Lloyd's St. John's Wort ranges from Virginia and South Carolina south to central Alabama, keeping mostly to the lower Piedmont and the sandhills, where the shrub turns up in dry woodlands, along road banks, and at the edges of granite flatrocks. The common name St. John's Wort, shared across the whole genus Hypericum, reaches back to the European custom of gathering the yellow-flowered kin at the Midsummer feast of Saint John, and the genus name itself, from the Greek hyper and eikon, above and image, recalls sprigs hung over doorways and icons to guard the house.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe needle foliage and low, tidy habit make Lloyd's St. John's Wort a natural for hot, dry, sandy ground where softer plants struggle: a rock garden, a sunny sandy bank, a sandhill or pine-savanna restoration, or the front edge of a well-drained bed. Give the shrub full sun and lean soil, and set little bluestem, prickly pear, and other sandhill natives nearby for a planting that shrugs off drought.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057887580275,"sku":"HYPE-LLOY-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1307.jpg?v=1720138712"},{"product_id":"hypericum-reductum","title":"Hypericum reductum","description":"\u003cp\u003eHypericum 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet reductum, reduced, suits a plant that has pared everything down: fine leaves, small flowers, low stature. Botanists now file the species under the name Hypericum tenuifolium, the thin-leaved St. John's Wort, though the older reductum still travels widely in the trade. Over both sits the genus name Hypericum, from the Greek hyper and eikon, above and image, a relic of the Midsummer custom of hanging flowering St. John's Wort above doorways and icons at the feast of Saint John to keep harm from the house.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of our favorite Hypericums, and one of the many southeastern natives Woodlanders was probably the first to offer, Atlantic St. John's Wort belongs to the deep sandy soils of the coastal plain, from North Carolina south through Florida and west to Alabama. The plant colonizes beach dunes, sandhills, and scrub, often near seasonally wet depressions, thriving on lean, sharply drained ground and shrugging off drought, heat, and salt air.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor a hot, sandy, sun-baked spot where a lawn would sulk, Atlantic St. John's Wort makes an easy, good-looking groundcover, spreading into a fine-textured evergreen mat spangled with summer gold. Use the shrub on a sandy bank, in a rock or gravel garden, along a coastal border, or in a sandhill or scrub restoration, and set wiregrass, gopher apple, and prickly pear alongside for a planting that asks almost nothing. Photos courtesy of Shirley Denton.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057887744115,"sku":"HYPE-REDU-01G","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Hypericum_reductum_Shirley-Denton.jpg?v=1747080950"},{"product_id":"hypericum-frondosum-sunburst","title":"Hypericum frondosum 'Sunburst'","description":"\u003cp\u003eHypericum 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057887973491,"sku":"HYPE-FRON-SUNB-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-394.jpg?v=1720138718"},{"product_id":"hypericum-prolificum","title":"Hypericum prolificum","description":"\u003cp\u003eHypericum prolificum lives up to the name, prolific, disappearing each summer under a heavy crop of bright yellow flowers, each three-quarters of an inch to an inch across and stuffed with a golden brush of stamens. The shrub is dense and rounded, with arching branches, narrow shiny leaves, and reddish, exfoliating bark that peels to show paler layers once the foliage thins.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name reads as a promise of abundance, and the old common name St. John's Wort ties the shrub to a long line of yellow-flowered kin gathered at the Midsummer feast of Saint John; the genus name Hypericum, from the Greek hyper and eikon, above and image, remembers sprigs hung over doorways and holy pictures to guard the house. The native American species carried something of that reputation into practice: the Cherokee used shrubby St. John's Wort and relatives as astringent and wound herbs and in remedies for respiratory complaints, a folk tradition set out more fully in the notes below.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFew native shrubs are so obliging. Hypericum prolificum ranges across the eastern United States from New York and Ontario south and west, at home on rocky ground and dry wooded slopes, in old fields, on gravel bars, and in low, moist valleys, and hardy from the cold of USDA zone three through the heat of zone eight. That breadth of tolerance, drought, brief flooding, poor rocky or sandy or clay soil, even a little salt, makes the shrub one of the toughest woody plants a gardener can choose.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor all that reliability the shrub is oddly scarce in gardens, a gap Woodlanders has long worked to close. Dr. Michael Dirr put the case plainly in his Manual of Woody Landscape Plants: \"I do not believe the Hypericums have been adequately explored and developed as landscape plants in the United States.\" Set shrubby St. John's Wort in a sunny, well-drained border, a low hedge, or a tough bank, and the summer-long gold, tidy rounded form, and peeling bark answer his complaint. Little bluestem, aromatic aster, and other sun-loving natives round out the planting.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057888071795,"sku":"HYPE-PROL-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-396.jpg?v=1720138721"},{"product_id":"hypericum-nudiflorum","title":"Hypericum nudiflorum","description":"\u003cp\u003eHypericum nudiflorum is the early riser among the St. John's Worts, a slender, upright shrub that opens golden flowers as early as May, often a full month ahead of relatives. The blooms carry the many-stamened brush typical of the clan, set against broad, light green, oval leaves that give the plant a softer, leafier look than the needle-leaved species.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet nudiflorum, naked-flowered, points to the way the airy flower clusters stand clear on nearly leafless stalks, and the same bareness shows lower down, where the cinnamon-colored main stems shed thin, flaky bark. Over that plain description sits the ancient genus name Hypericum, from the Greek hyper and eikon, above and image, from the Midsummer habit of hanging flowering St. John's Wort above doorways and icons at the feast of Saint John to keep the household safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild early St. John's Wort keeps to wet ground, threading the banks of streams and the edges of swamps and floodplains through the Southeastern Coastal Plain and into the Florida Panhandle. Rather uncommon in the wild, the shrub grows taller and more open than most of the native Hypericums, with many branches rising from a single leafless main stem into a narrow, irregular crown.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnother of the southeastern Hypericums that Woodlanders was probably the first to offer, early St. John's Wort earns a place for the timing alone, bringing gold to the garden when little else in the shrub border has started. Plant the shrub in moist soil in sun or light shade, at a pond margin, a streamside, or the damp back of a border, and let the early flowers, leafy summer green, and flaky cinnamon bark each take a turn. Buttonbush, Virginia sweetspire, and native ferns suit the same moist company.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057888202867,"sku":"HYPE-NUDI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-996.jpg?v=1720138725"},{"product_id":"hypericum-lissophloeus","title":"Hypericum lissophloeus","description":"\u003cp\u003eHypericum lissophloeus is the tree among the St. John's Worts, a graceful evergreen that climbs to ten feet or more on slender trunks dressed in smooth, copper-colored bark that peels in thin sheets. The leaves are needle-fine and deep green, so that from a distance the plant reads almost like a small conifer until summer, when small bright yellow flowers scatter along the stems and settle the question of family.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet lissophloeus is a plain description in Greek: lissos, smooth, and phloios, bark, for the polished trunks that set this species apart from every rough-barked relative. The genus name Hypericum is older and stranger, from hyper and eikon, above and image, a relic of the Midsummer custom of hanging flowering St. John's Wort above doorways and holy pictures to ward off evil at the feast of Saint John. Smooth-barked St. John's Wort wears the family name but makes the bark, not the bloom, the memorable thing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe wild range is heartbreakingly small. Hypericum lissophloeus grows only in Bay and Washington Counties on the Florida Panhandle, on the sandy slopes and margins of sinkhole ponds set in xeric uplands. The water there rises and falls dramatically across the year, from drought that leaves the roots high and dry to seasonal flooding that can stand four feet deep, and the plant is built to ride out both extremes. Listed as endangered in Florida, the species is one of many rare southeastern natives that Woodlanders was probably the first nursery to offer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden smooth-barked St. John's Wort makes an elegant, upright specimen for a sunny, well-drained sandy site, and thrives on the same fluctuating moisture found at a pond edge or a rain garden that floods and then dries. The one real requirement is room: the plant resents crowding, so keep the base free of competing vegetation and let the fine evergreen texture and copper trunks stand clear. Set the shrub where low winter light can catch the bark, with wiregrass, native azaleas, and other sandhill companions at a respectful distance. Additional photos courtesy of Shirley Denton.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057888333939,"sku":"HYPE-LISS-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/HypericumlissophloeusWoodlanders1.png?v=1741211557"},{"product_id":"hypericum-kalmianum","title":"Hypericum kalmianum","description":"\u003cp\u003eHypericum kalmianum is the tidy, cold-hardy member of the clan, a compact rounded shrub barely knee-high, densely branched, with narrow bluish-green leaves set in pairs along curiously four-angled stems. From July into September the plant disappears under bright golden flowers, each a shallow cup filled with a full boss of stamens, the bloom arriving in the heat of summer when the color is most welcome.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name honors Pehr Kalm, the Finnish-Swedish naturalist who traveled British North America in the mid-eighteenth century and sent plants home to his teacher, Carl Linnaeus. Linnaeus returned the favor by attaching Kalm's name to this shrub and to the mountain laurels, the genus Kalmia, so a single traveler is remembered twice over in the flora. Above that personal history sits the ancient genus name, Hypericum, from the Greek hyper and eikon, above and image, recalling the old habit of hanging flowering St. John's Wort over doorways and icons at Midsummer to keep trouble out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild Hypericum kalmianum belongs to the Great Lakes, threading the shorelines of Ontario, Quebec, and the states that ring the lakes, from Michigan and Wisconsin to New York and Ohio. The shrub favors damp, open, often calcareous ground: interdunal swales, the sandy borders of ponds, moist meadows, and the flat limestone pavements known as alvars, among the rarest habitats in North America. That upbringing makes for a plant of remarkable toughness, at home in cold, wind, and lean, gritty soil.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders offers Kalm's St. John's Wort thanks to Mr. Richard Lynch of Staten Island, New York, and the shrub earns the introduction. Compact and neat without shearing, the plant works as a low informal hedge, a foundation filler, a front-of-border mound, or a rain garden shrub, and the summer gold reads cleanly against the blue-green foliage. Cold-hardy far to the north, Kalm's St. John's Wort pairs easily with little bluestem, coneflowers, and other sun-loving natives on well-drained ground.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057888399475,"sku":"HYPE-KALM-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1442.jpg?v=1720138735"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/plants-starting-with-h.oembed?page=3","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}