{"title":"Plants Starting with \"I\"","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"citrus-citrus-x-citrus-ichangensis-x-citrus-grandis-maxima","title":"Ichang \"Lemon\"","description":"\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders has long led the way in offering cold-hardy citrus, the kinds that carry fruit well beyond the usual citrus belt, and Ichang Lemon is a favorite of the group. The plant grows as a medium, evergreen small tree with large leaves on winged petioles and thorny branches, opens the fragrant white flowers typical of citrus in spring, and follows with very large, lemon-yellow, fragrant fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDespite the name, Ichang Lemon is not a true lemon but a hardy hybrid, Citrus × wilsonii, a cross of the Ichang papeda, Citrus ichangensis, with the pomelo, Citrus maxima. The Ichang papeda parent, native to the cold hills around Yichang in central China, is one of the most frost-tolerant citrus known, and passes that toughness on. Seed reached Western growers through the plant explorer Frank Meyer in 1919, and in China the fragrant fruit was once carried in the hand like a living perfume, earning the name shangjuan, the fragrant ball.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the kitchen the large, juicy, seedy fruit stands in for lemons: the bright, tangy juice, with subtle earthy notes, makes fine lemonade and marmalade, and a pie built from these fruit is, in our experience, perhaps better than the real thing. The heavy crop ripens through late fall and winter, exactly when a fresh, tart citrus is most welcome, and the flowers and fruit both carry a clean, far-reaching fragrance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe real appeal is hardiness. Ichang Lemon shrugs off cold to around ten to fifteen degrees Fahrenheit, and has fruited outdoors far north of the citrus belt, as far as New Jersey. Give the tree full sun and well-drained soil in the warm South, or grow the plant in a large pot to move under cover when hard freezes threaten. As a specimen the glossy evergreen leaves, fragrant spring bloom, and heavy gold fruit all earn a place near a patio or entry where the scent can be enjoyed.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057836593267,"sku":"ICHA-LEMO-CITR-ICHA-01G","price":42.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Ichang_Lemon_Woodlanders2.jpg?v=1731724944"},{"product_id":"ilex-glabra-leucocarpa","title":"Ilex glabra 'Leucocarpa'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex glabra 'Leucocarpa' is the white-berried surprise among the inkberries, a native evergreen holly that trades the usual near-black fruit for berries of clean ivory white. On the ordinary inkberry the dark berries all but vanish against the deep green leaves, but here the pale fruit stands out cleanly and holds on the branches from fall right through to spring, a quiet, unexpected show in the winter garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBehind the novelty stands one of the finest native broadleaf evergreens of eastern North America. Ilex glabra, the inkberry or gallberry, ranges along the coastal plain from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to the Gulf, growing in sandy, acid, often boggy ground. The epithet glabra means smooth, for the neat, spineless, glossy leaves that set inkberry apart from the prickly hollies, and 'Leucocarpa', white-fruited, names this pale-berried form.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor all the focus on fruit color, the small greenish-white flowers matter most to the bees. Inkberry nectar yields the celebrated gallberry honey, a mild, light honey long tied to the pinewoods and bogs of the South, so a stand of these hollies feeds pollinators as generously as the plants decorate the garden. As with any holly, the berries, white in this case, appear only on female plants, so a male inkberry set nearby is needed to insure the crop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNeat, rounded, and evergreen to the ground, inkberry 'Leucocarpa' works as a low informal hedge, a foundation planting, a massing in a rain garden, or a companion to azaleas, camellias, and other acid-loving plants. Give the roots moist, acidic soil in sun to part shade, keep the ground from drying out, and the white winter berries will repay the spot. Pair the shrub with sweetbay, itea, and native ferns in the same damp company.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057888923763,"sku":"ILEX-GLAB-LEUC-01G","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-401.jpg?v=1720138751"},{"product_id":"ilex-glabra-male","title":"Ilex glabra (male)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex glabra, the inkberry or gallberry, is one of the finest native broadleaf evergreens of eastern North America, rooted in the sandy, acid soils of the coastal plain from Nova Scotia and New Jersey south through Florida and across the Gulf states. In wet pinelands, pocosins, and boggy edges this holly has long been a defining presence, and wherever the ground runs lean, sandy, and moist, inkberry settles in.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis particular plant is the male form of inkberry, and the role is as quiet as it is essential. Male inkberry bears no black berries, and none of the rare white-fruited forms treasured by collectors, but the flowers carry the pollen without which no female holly will fruit. Gardeners planting inkberry for those berries need at least one male in range, for balance and for continuity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond that reproductive job the male inkberry offers plenty in the garden. The evergreen foliage is dense, glossy, and spineless, forming a neat rounded shrub that answers well to pruning and shaping, and unlike many hollies inkberry tends to hold the leaves well down the stems, staying fuller and cleaner than lesser evergreens. Full sun to part shade suits the plant, given acidic soil that holds some moisture, and mass plantings, low hedges, and pairings with azaleas and camellias all come easily.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers, modest as they look, carry real weight. In spring the nectar of inkberry draws bees, and from that flow comes the famed gallberry honey, a mild, pale honey long associated with the Southern pinewoods. Bees, bogs, and hollies have worked together across that region for centuries, and a male inkberry quietly underwrites the whole exchange, feeding the hive and setting the stage for the female shrubs to fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889382515,"sku":"ILEX-GLAB-MALE-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IlexglabraJohnGrimshaw_45126b5e-f9df-4421-8843-6740ca0cd538.jpg?v=1755938337"},{"product_id":"ilex-glabra-nigra","title":"Ilex glabra ‘Nigra’","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex glabra 'Nigra' is the inkberry chosen for good looks in every season, a compact, rounded evergreen holly with unusually rich, dark green leaves. Where the wild inkberry can bronze and dull through a hard winter, this selection was picked to hold a deeper, cleaner green, and the smooth, spineless foliage stays handsome on a tidy frame that runs lower and denser than the run of the species.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species is one of the great native broadleaf evergreens of the East. Ilex glabra, inkberry or gallberry, grows through the sandy, acid soils of the coastal plain from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to the Gulf, in wet pinelands and bog edges. The epithet glabra means smooth, for the neat, unarmed leaves, and 'Nigra', black or dark, names both the deep foliage and, on female plants, the small black berries that give inkberry the common name.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Nigra' has earned a place. The horticulturist Michael Dirr, who has spent decades searching for better inkberries, judged this clone about the best in his Georgia trials, praising the dark, persistent foliage and the compact habit. Those are exactly the traits that turn a useful native into a garden staple: color that holds, a shape that stays full, and the toughness inkberry brings from the wild bogs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNeat and evergreen to the base, 'Nigra' works as a low clipped or informal hedge, a foundation planting, a massing, or a dark green backdrop for perennials, and takes shearing without complaint. Give the roots moist, acidic soil in sun to part shade, and pair the shrub with azaleas, camellias, sweetbay, and native ferns in the same acid company. For berries, set a male inkberry nearby; the spring flowers feed bees either way.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889480819,"sku":"ILE-GLAB-NIGR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1370.jpg?v=1720138765"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-hoskins-shadow","title":"Ilex vomitoria 'Hoskins Shadow'","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern coastal plain, native from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Adaptable almost to a fault, salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and content in sun or shade, the species takes shearing as neatly as boxwood and has served Southern gardens for generations as hedge, screen, and clipped structure. 'Hoskins Shadow' is a standout among the named forms: a dense, fast-growing shrub or small tree, 15 to 20 feet in time, chosen for unusually large, dark green foliage and, above all, for cold hardiness well beyond the ordinary yaupon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plant carries history as well as good manners. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated 'black drink' that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony and trade, and that coastal settlers later adopted as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America's only caffeine-bearing native plant. The harsh species name, vomitoria, records a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes accompanied the drink, a blame the plant did not earn, since the holly is not emetic in ordinary use; the common name is kinder, from the Catawban ya'pa, a diminutive meaning 'small tree.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'Hoskins Shadow,' sometimes listed as 'Shadow's Hardy,' was selected for that big dark foliage and toughness by H. Shadow at Howell Nursery in Winchester, Tennessee. The plant has reportedly come through minus ten degrees Fahrenheit, a cold that would kill most yaupons outright, which pushes this holly a full zone north of where the species usually stops. Female and generously fruitful, 'Hoskins Shadow' hangs abundant scarlet berries that hold from fall through spring when a male yaupon grows within reach.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFew evergreens give this much for so little trouble. Use 'Hoskins Shadow' as a fast, dense screen or a large clipped hedge, or let a single plant grow into a small multi-stemmed tree limbed up to show the pale trunks. The dark leaves make a fine backdrop for lighter foliage and for the scarlet winter fruit, so site where the berries can be seen from a window or walk, and set a male such as 'Dewerth' nearby to guarantee the crop. Gardeners in the upper South and lower Midwest, long shut out of yaupon, finally have a form worth trying.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889710195,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-HOSK-SHAD-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-110.jpg?v=1720138773"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-female-gold-top","title":"Ilex vomitoria (female) \"Gold Top\"","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern coastal plain, native from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Tough, salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and endlessly shearable, the species has anchored Southern gardens for generations. 'Gold Top' rings a color change on the familiar green: each spring the new growth flushes a bright yellow-green, gilding the tips of a compact, dense female shrub, and in fall the same plant hangs the usual red yaupon berries when a male grows nearby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYaupon is more than a well-mannered evergreen. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated 'black drink' that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony, council, and trade, and that coastal colonists later drank as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America's only caffeine-bearing native plant. The harsh species name, vomitoria, records a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, a charge the holly did not earn, being no emetic in ordinary use; the common name, from the Catawban ya'pa, means simply 'small tree.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'Gold Top' is a Woodlanders introduction, grown from a single golden-topped plant found in Calhoun County on the Texas coast. The bright new growth is the whole point, a warm chartreuse flush that lights the crown of the shrub in spring and early summer before settling to green, giving a compact yaupon a season of color that the plain species cannot match.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse 'Gold Top' where the spring gilding will be seen: near an entry, at the front of an evergreen border, or against darker foliage that throws the gold forward. The compact, dense habit clips readily into a low hedge or a rounded specimen, and the red winter berries, set with a male yaupon such as 'Dewerth' nearby, carry the plant into the cold months. Site in sun for the brightest new growth and heaviest fruit, and count on the same salt and drought tolerance that makes yaupon indispensable.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889808499,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-FEMA-GOLD-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-108.jpg?v=1720138776"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-folsoms-weeping","title":"Ilex vomitoria 'Folsom's Weeping'","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the fine-textured evergreen holly of the Southeast, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. The species wears small, glossy, oval leaves on gray twigs, tolerates salt, drought, and hard shearing, and has long anchored Southern gardens as hedge, screen, and topiary. 'Folsom's Weeping' breaks from that upright habit entirely: a tall female selection whose branches spill downward in long, pendulous curtains, so that a single mature plant reads as a green fountain rather than a shrub.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYaupon holds a deeper claim on the region than ornament. The roasted leaves and twigs made the caffeinated 'black drink' that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony and trade, and that later served coastal colonists as a homegrown coffee or tea. This holly is North America's only caffeine-bearing native plant. The forbidding species name, vomitoria, comes from a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, wrongly pinned on the plant, which is not emetic in normal use; the softer common name descends from the Catawban ya'pa, a diminutive meaning 'small tree.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe weeping form was first found in Folsom, Louisiana in 1952 by J.A. Foret, and named by the late Tom Dodd, Jr. of Semmes, Alabama, one of the great Gulf Coast plantsmen. Long a prized accent in Southern gardens and stubbornly hard to find in small sizes, these plants set the same crop of small translucent scarlet berries as any female yaupon when a male grows nearby, the fruit hanging along the drooping branches from fall well into spring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive 'Folsom's Weeping' room to be a specimen. A single plant makes a living exclamation point beside a gate, at the turn of a path, or against a plain wall where the cascading silhouette can be read against the sky; several set in a row weep into an unusual informal screen. Underplant with low evergreens or a groundcover so the sweeping lower branches have something quiet to fall against, and site a male yaupon such as 'Dewerth' within range to load the branches with winter fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889939571,"sku":"ILE-VOMI-FOLS-WEEP-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1223.jpg?v=1720138778"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-male-will-fleming","title":"Ilex vomitoria (male) ‘Will Fleming’","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the Southeast, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. The wild plant is a broad, twiggy shrub, so a yaupon that grows straight up like a green column is a genuine oddity. 'Will Fleming' is exactly that: a male selection with a strict fastigiate habit, reaching twelve to fifteen feet tall on a base only two or three feet wide, a living exclamation mark carrying the fine yaupon leaf all the way up.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYaupon is more than an architectural curiosity. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated 'black drink' that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony, council, and trade, and that coastal colonists later drank as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America's only caffeine-bearing native plant. The harsh species name, vomitoria, records a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, a charge the holly did not earn, being no emetic in ordinary use; the common name, from the Catawban ya'pa, means simply 'small tree.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe narrow form was found in east Texas by Will Fleming, whose name the plant now carries, and has become one of the most useful hollies in the Southern palette for tight spaces. As a male, 'Will Fleming' sets no berries, but doubles as a pollinator for female yaupons within range. One caution earns mention: with age the upright stems can lean and splay, so most gardeners tie or lightly shear the column now and then to keep the crisp vertical line.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing draws the eye upward like a true column, and 'Will Fleming' delivers one where space is tight: flanking a doorway, marking the corners of a formal bed, punctuating a long border, or standing in a row as a narrow living screen along a fence or property line. Pair with low mounding evergreens or perennials at the base, give full sun for the densest growth, and keep a female yaupon nearby if berries are wanted elsewhere in the planting. Drought, salt, and shearing leave the plant untroubled.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890070643,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-WILL-FLEM-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-113.jpg?v=1720138781"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-female-virginia-dare","title":"Ilex vomitoria (female) 'Virginia Dare'","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon holly is a small-leaved evergreen shrub or small tree of the southeastern United States, native from coastal Virginia south to Texas. Adaptable to a fault, salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and willing in sun or shade, yaupon takes shearing as gracefully as any boxwood, which has made the species a Southern mainstay for hedges, topiary, and clipped evergreen structure. The tiny white spring flowers are easy to miss, but the bees do not miss them, and on female plants they give way to a heavy crop of small, translucent berries that hang on well into winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLong before any of that, yaupon was the source of the caffeinated 'black drink' of the coastal tribes, brewed from roasted leaves and twigs for ceremony and trade, and later taken up as a coffee or tea substitute by inhabitants of the Virginia and Carolina coast. North America's only caffeine-bearing native plant, yaupon is enjoying a quiet revival today as a homegrown tea.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'Virginia Dare' is an orange-fruited selection made in Dare County, North Carolina by B. Bauers, Sr., and named for Virginia Dare, the first English child born in North America. Taller than many forms and reliably fruitful, these plants suit a clipped or informal hedge. Plant a male yaupon nearby to ensure fruit set.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhoto credit to the Tyler Rose IDEA Garden\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890168947,"sku":"ILE-VOMI-FEMA-VIRG-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IlexvomitoriaVirginiaDareTylerRoseIDEAGarden.jpg?v=1782910854"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-male","title":"Ilex vomitoria (male)","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern United States, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and willing in sun or shade, the species shears as cleanly as boxwood and has long been a Southern mainstay for hedges, screens, and topiary. This is the straight male form: no berries, since male hollies never fruit, but a dense, dependable evergreen and the pollen source that every berried female yaupon needs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYaupon is more than a well-mannered evergreen. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated 'black drink' that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony, council, and trade, and that coastal colonists later drank as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America's only caffeine-bearing native plant. The harsh species name, vomitoria, records a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, a charge the holly did not earn, being no emetic in ordinary use; the common name, from the Catawban ya'pa, means simply 'small tree.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA male yaupon does quiet, essential work. Set within pollen range of female selections, one male will fruit a whole group, the bees carrying pollen from the small spring flowers to the females that color the winter with berries. The plant is no less useful standing alone, building the same fine-textured, close-sheared evergreen mass as any yaupon, and asking for nothing once established.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePlant a male yaupon wherever female yaupons are grown for fruit, roughly within fifty feet so the bees can do their work. Beyond pollination, use the dense evergreen habit for a sheared or informal hedge, a screen, a topiary, or clipped structure, in sun for the tightest growth or in shade where few evergreens hold up so well. Salt spray, drought, and hard pruning leave the plant unbothered, which is much of why yaupon remains a Southern workhorse.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890234483,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-MALE-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-109.jpg?v=1720138790"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-yawkey","title":"Ilex vomitoria 'Yawkey'","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the Southeast, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and willing in sun or shade, the species shears as cleanly as boxwood and has long been a Southern mainstay for hedges and clipped structure, the females carrying translucent scarlet berries into winter. 'Yawkey' rewrites that last detail in a rarer color: this is a yellow-berried yaupon, hung each winter with soft amber-gold fruit instead of red, on an upright, somewhat open and spreading frame.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe species behind this oddity is no ordinary shrub. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated 'black drink' that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony, council, and trade, and that coastal colonists later drank as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America's only caffeine-bearing native plant. The unkind species name, vomitoria, records a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, a fault the holly does not carry, being no emetic in normal use; the common name, from the Catawban ya'pa, means simply 'small tree.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe yellow-fruited form was found by F.G. Tarbox, Jr. on the T.A. Yawkey Plantation in Georgetown County, South Carolina, and introduced by Brookgreen Gardens, where a single rescued seedling first fruited in 1943. Tarbox described the plant as Ilex vomitoria variety yawkeyii, the berries yellow, four to six millimeters across and slightly flattened; at the time only a couple of other plants were known to exist. Even now the yellow yaupons remain scarce in the trade, which is much of the appeal for collectors and designers hunting something out of the ordinary.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the garden 'Yawkey' plays against every expectation of a holly. The amber-gold fruit glows where scarlet would shout, lovely against dark evergreens, a gray wall, or a winter sky, and pairs beautifully with a red-berried yaupon for a two-tone planting. The upright, open habit suits an informal screen or a specimen more than a tight clipped hedge, though the plant shears if asked. Site in sun for the best fruit, keep a male yaupon such as 'Dewerth' within range for pollination, and enjoy a native evergreen that shrugs off salt, drought, and heat. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/blogs\/the-node\/ilex-vomitoria-yawkey-the-yellow-berried-yaupon-that-sells-out-in-winter\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eRead our field notes and design guide for this holly here.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890365555,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-YAWK-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-111.jpg?v=1720138794"},{"product_id":"ilex-amelanchier-female","title":"Ilex amelanchier (female)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex amelanchier is one of the surprises of the genus, a holly that drops the leaves in fall and carries none of the usual prickles. This rare native grows as a tall deciduous shrub or small tree, and the female plants, this one among them, hang dull, matte red berries on unusually long stems, a soft-toned, almost muted display quite unlike the glossy scarlet of a Christmas holly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet amelanchier is the giveaway, borrowed straight from the serviceberry, Amelanchier, for leaves that echo that small tree: oval, soft, and up to four inches long, nothing like the spiny evergreen foliage most people picture on a holly. The likeness has earned the plant several common names, Sarvis Holly, Serviceberry Holly, and Shadbush Holly among them, each pointing back to that gentle, deciduous leaf.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild Sarvis Holly is genuinely scarce, threading the tea-dark blackwater rivers and floodplains of the Southeastern Coastal Plain, gathering around natural ponds, and settling into the clay-based depressions known as Carolina bays, with a northern limit in southeastern North Carolina. Little known in gardens, the plant is one of those quietly special natives that reward a collector willing to give the roots damp, acid ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a female, this holly needs a male of a compatible holly nearby to set the long-stemmed fruit, and given that partner the plant makes an unusual specimen for a moist, acid, part-shaded spot: a pond edge, a rain garden, a woodland border, or a native collection. The soft summer foliage, red fall berries on bare twigs, and sheer rarity all recommend the shrub. Set the roots with sweetbay, itea, and swamp azalea in the same damp company.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890562163,"sku":"ILEX-AMEL-FEMA-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/ilex_ameranchier_howard_horne_01.jpg?v=1732642949"},{"product_id":"ilex-opaca-female-selected-red","title":"Ilex opaca (female) 'Selected Red'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex opaca, the American holly, is the classic evergreen holly of eastern woods, a medium tree with tough, spine-edged, leathery leaves and the bright red berries that have meant Christmas for generations. 'Selected Red' is one of the good ones, a female clone Woodlanders propagated from a group of hollies planted many years ago in Aiken, South Carolina, chosen for very good foliage and an abundant crop of bright red fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat sets this clone apart is the form. 'Selected Red' grows into a dense, pyramidal tree with a slight, graceful weep to the branches, a softer silhouette than the stiff pyramids of many American hollies, and the habit is close enough to the old variety 'Croonenburg' that the two may be one and the same. Dense to the base and evergreen, the tree reads as a solid green cone all year, then lights up with red in fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name opaca means dull or opaque, for the matte, un-lacquered surface of the American holly leaf, which sets the species apart from the glossy Asian and English hollies. Native across the eastern United States, from Massachusetts to Florida and west to Texas, American holly grows on well-drained woodland soils and ranks among the most widely planted native evergreens, valued for form, winter berries, and the birds the fruit feeds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a female, 'Selected Red' needs a male American holly in range to set that heavy red crop, so pair the tree with a pollinizer such as 'Jersey Knight' nearby. Slow and long-lived, the plant makes a fine specimen, a tall evergreen screen, or a woodland-edge anchor, in full sun to part shade and moist, acidic, well-drained soil. The berried branches are a natural for holiday greenery, and the winter fruit feeds songbirds when little else is left.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890857075,"sku":"ILEX-OPAC-FEMA-SELE-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-105.jpg?v=1720138803"},{"product_id":"ilex-integra","title":"Ilex integra","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex integra is the holly for people who do not think they like hollies, an evergreen tree from Japan whose leaves carry no spines at all. The dark green foliage is smooth-edged, glossy, and thick, giving a clean, almost magnolia-like calm, and on female trees the show comes in fall and winter, when bright red berries gather along the branches against the deep green.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe botanical name marks the difference: integra means entire or undivided, for those untoothed, spineless leaves. In Japan the tree is the mochi-no-ki, the mochi tree, a name that reaches past the garden into old craft, for the sticky inner bark was long boiled down into torimochi, the birdlime once smeared on branches to catch small birds and insects. The same tree has been planted at shrines as a sacred tree, valued as much for meaning as for beauty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the milder middle of China, Ilex integra grows slowly into a dense, upright small tree, in time reaching twenty to thirty feet. The plant favors the mild, humid conditions of the coastal Southeast, thriving in fertile, well-drained soil in sun or part shade, and rewards patience with a tidy, year-round evergreen presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSlow, clean, and handsome, the mochi tree suits a formal garden, a courtyard, an evergreen screen, or a specimen spot near an entry where the red winter berries can be enjoyed. The spineless leaves make the tree friendly to brush against, an advantage along a path or a seating area. Set a male holly within range for the fullest berry set, and pair the tree with camellias, fatsia, and other broadleaf evergreens for a quiet, layered planting.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057891184755,"sku":"ILEX-INTE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-99.jpg?v=1720138811"},{"product_id":"ilex-pedunculosa-female","title":"Ilex pedunculosa (female)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex pedunculosa is the holly that fools people, an evergreen with smooth, spineless, glossy leaves closer to mountain laurel than to any prickly Christmas holly. The real signature comes in fall, when bright red berries hang from slender stalks an inch or two long, dangling below the branches like tiny cherries, a detail no other cultivated holly quite matches and the source of both the botanical name and the common one, longstalk holly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet pedunculosa points straight to those long peduncles, the stalks from which the fruit depends, and the trait is worth the name. Native to central and southern China, Taiwan, and Japan, this small evergreen tree is also among the very hardiest of the broadleaf evergreen hollies, holding the glossy leaves and setting fruit as far north as USDA zone five, where most evergreen hollies will not grow at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat combination of cold-hardiness, clean spineless foliage, and cherry-like fruit has won admirers, chief among them the horticulturist Michael Dirr, who wrote that longstalk holly should be used more than it is, that the tree is apparently not well known, and that to him it is the most handsome of the evergreen hollies that can be grown in northern gardens. High praise, and deserved, for a plant still hard to find in the trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a female, this longstalk holly needs a male within range to set the long-stalked red berries, which birds relish and deer tend to leave alone. Slow and refined, the plant makes a quietly distinctive specimen, a screen, or an evergreen anchor for a border in sun or part shade and moist, well-drained soil. Give the tree room to show the hanging fruit, and pair the roots with rhododendron, mountain laurel, and other acid-loving evergreens.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057891643507,"sku":"ILEX-PEDU-FEMA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-106.jpg?v=1720138823"},{"product_id":"ilex-pedunculosa-male","title":"Ilex pedunculosa (male)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex pedunculosa (male) is the pollen partner for one of the most refined and cold-hardy evergreen hollies in cultivation. Like the female, this male longstalk holly carries smooth, spineless, glossy leaves closer to mountain laurel than to a prickly Christmas holly, on a slow, medium to large shrub or small tree of quiet good looks. What the male does not do is fruit; what the male does is make that fruit possible.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLongstalk hollies are dioecious, with male and female on separate plants, and a female sets the signature red, long-stalked berries only with a male in bloom nearby. This plant fills that role, opening small pollen-rich flowers in step with the females and carrying the same clean evergreen foliage and notable cold-hardiness, holding leaves as far north as USDA zone five where most broadleaf evergreens fail.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species comes from central and southern China, Taiwan, and Japan, and takes both botanical and common names from the long peduncles, the slender stalks that hold the fruit well clear of the branches on female trees. Little known in the trade, longstalk holly has drawn steady praise as among the handsomest evergreen hollies for cooler gardens, and a male plant is the quiet requirement behind every berried female.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant this male wherever a female longstalk holly is grown for fruit, and let the dense, spineless, deer-resistant evergreen earn a place as a screen, a background shrub, or a specimen in sun to part shade and moist, well-drained soil. One male covers several females nearby, so a single plant tucked into a border sets the whole group fruiting. Pair the roots with rhododendron, mountain laurel, and other acid-loving evergreens.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057891741811,"sku":"ILEX-PEDU-MALE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-107.jpg?v=1720138825"},{"product_id":"ilex-opaca-fallaw","title":"Ilex opaca 'Fallaw'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex opaca, the American holly, is the classic evergreen holly of the eastern woods, a medium-size tree with tough, leathery, spine-edged leaves and, on female trees, the bright berries that have meant Christmas for generations. 'Fallaw' keeps the familiar form but changes the color of the fruit: where the wild tree ripens red, this selection hangs clear amber-yellow berries, an uncommon and cheerful contrast against the dark evergreen foliage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name opaca means dull or opaque, a nod to the matte, un-glossy surface of the American holly's leaf, which sets the species apart from the lacquered Asian and English hollies. Native across the eastern United States, from Massachusetts to Florida and west to Texas, the tree grows on well-drained woodland soils and has long been one of the most widely planted native evergreens, valued for dense form, winter berries, and the wildlife the fruit feeds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeedling American hollies vary enormously, in leaf, in form, and in fruit, so gardeners have long relied on named clones for the best plants, and 'Fallaw' is a good one. This yellow-fruited selection was found many years ago on the Fallaw farm near Batesburg, South Carolina, and propagated to keep the amber-berried trait true. As a female clone, the plant needs a male American holly in range to set that unusual crop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSlow and long-lived, 'Fallaw' builds into a fine pyramidal specimen for a lawn, a woodland edge, or a tall evergreen screen, and the yellow berries make a memorable change in a holiday arrangement. Give the tree full sun to part shade and moist, acidic, well-drained soil, and set a male holly nearby for fruit. Birds take the berries through winter, so a stand does double duty as evergreen structure and a wildlife feeder.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057891905651,"sku":"ILE-OPAC-FALL-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-103.jpg?v=1720138828"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-jim-dandy","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Jim Dandy'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex verticillata 'Jim Dandy' is a small shrub with an outsized job. Winterberry, the native deciduous holly, puts on one of the great shows in the winter garden, bare stems crowded with brilliant red fruit, but only female plants carry that fruit, and only when the right male blooms alongside them. 'Jim Dandy' is that male for the early-flowering winterberries, a dwarf pollinizer bred to bloom in step with them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTiming is everything with winterberries. The species comes in two broad strains, a northern one that blooms early and a southern one that blooms later, and a female will only set fruit if a male opens flowers at the same moment. 'Jim Dandy' is an early bloomer, the classic partner for early female clones like 'Red Sprite', 'Afterglow', and 'Maryland Beauty'; for the late females, such as 'Winter Red' and 'Winter Gold', a different male like 'Apollo' is needed instead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a plant, 'Jim Dandy' stays neat and dwarf, four or five feet, with the same finely toothed, spineless leaves as the rest of the clan, deciduous and unremarkable through summer. That is exactly the point: this is a working shrub, tucked in for pollination rather than display, small enough to fit at the back of a border or among the females themselves without crowding them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant one 'Jim Dandy' within about fifty feet of the early female winterberries meant to fruit, and a single male will service ten or more of them. Give the roots the moist to wet, acidic soil the whole group loves, in full sun to part shade, and let the females take the spotlight while this quiet partner does the essential work behind the winter berries.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892003955,"sku":"ILE-VERT-JIM-DAND-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-406.jpg?v=1720138831"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-x-serrata-sparkleberry","title":"Ilex verticillata x serrata 'Sparkleberry'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex 'Sparkleberry' is the aristocrat of the winterberries, a vigorous hybrid holly bred from the native winterberry, Ilex verticillata, and the Japanese winterberry, Ilex serrata, and introduced by the U.S. National Arboretum. The cross brought hybrid vigor and a heavier, longer-holding crop: tall, upright stems that shed their leaves in fall and blaze with bright red fruit, persisting so well that the berries often hang on into spring.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat performance has made 'Sparkleberry' one of the most celebrated deciduous hollies in cultivation, an award-winning selection grown for the sheer quantity and staying power of the fruit. A mature plant reaches ten to twelve feet, upright and eventually a little leggy at the base, which is a feature rather than a flaw: the bare lower stems lift the berry display to eye level and above, and lower plants can be set in front to hide the ankles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberry is a deciduous holly of eastern North American wetlands, and the Japanese parent brings extra vigor, but the family rules still hold: only female plants fruit, and only with a compatible male blooming nearby. 'Sparkleberry' is pollinized by a male of the same parentage, 'Apollo' or 'Raritan Chief', set within about fifty feet; the long-blooming 'Raritan Chief' is an especially reliable partner.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive 'Sparkleberry' the moist to wet, acidic soil winterberry loves, in full sun to part shade, and let the tall shrub command a rain garden, a pond edge, a wet swale, or the back of a border, spectacular through the winter and feeding birds into spring. The long-lasting cut branches are prized for holiday arrangements, and a group planted with one male carries a dependable, long-running show.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892135027,"sku":"ILEX-VERT-X-SERR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Ilex_Sparkleberry_1_1024x1024_2x_42a4f9dd-1440-4966-bc17-996c20961773.webp?v=1750801208"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-maryland-beauty","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Maryland Beauty'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex verticillata 'Maryland Beauty' is winterberry doing what winterberry does best, and a little more of it. This native deciduous holly loses the leaves in fall to reveal bare gray stems packed with fruit, and 'Maryland Beauty' was singled out from the northern strain for an especially heavy crop of bright red berries, a dense, glowing display that holds through the winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere many winterberries grow tall and upright, 'Maryland Beauty' stays low and spreading, a rounded three to five feet, easy to place at the front of a border or in a mass. The finely toothed, spineless leaves are quiet and green through summer, so the plant asks little attention until fall, when the fruit arrives and the show begins. Birds eventually strip the berries, but not before they have carried the garden through the hardest months.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberry belongs to the wet ground of eastern North America, swamp edges and pond margins from Canada to the Gulf, and the name verticillata, whorled, describes how the small flowers cluster along the twigs. Only females fruit, and only with a male of matching bloom time nearby. 'Maryland Beauty' is an early-blooming northern type, so the dwarf early male 'Jim Dandy' is the right partner, set within about fifty feet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive 'Maryland Beauty' the moist to wet, acidic soil winterberry loves, in full sun to part shade, and let the low, heavy-fruited shrub light a rain garden, a pond edge, a wet swale, or the front of a mixed border through the coldest months. A few cut branches of red berries are a classic holiday green, and the winter fruit feeds songbirds when little else remains.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892200563,"sku":"ILE-VERT-MARY-BEAU-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-412.jpg?v=1720138837"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-x-serrata-raritan-chief","title":"Ilex verticillata x serrata 'Raritan Chief'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex 'Raritan Chief' is a male winterberry with a long working day. A compact hybrid of the native winterberry, Ilex verticillata, and the Japanese winterberry, Ilex serrata, this deciduous holly was bred as a pollinizer rather than a show plant, and a long bloom season makes 'Raritan Chief' one of the most flexible pollinizers in the group.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name points to the source. 'Raritan Chief' came from the breeding work of Dr. Elwin Orton at Rutgers University, on the Raritan River in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a program that produced some of the best hollies in American gardens. Orton crossed the American and Japanese winterberries for hybrid vigor, and this male selection carries that strength on a neat, compact frame.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBecause 'Raritan Chief' flowers over a long stretch rather than a narrow window, a single plant overlaps the bloom of many different female winterberries and pollinizes them all. The classic partner is the famous 'Sparkleberry', a female of the same parentage, but 'Raritan Chief' also sets fruit on 'Winter Red', 'Autumn Glow', 'Harvest Red', and others, early and late alike, one male covering a whole mixed planting.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a plant, 'Raritan Chief' stays compact and rounded, four or five feet tall, clean green through summer and unremarkable in winter once the leaves drop, exactly what a working pollinizer should be. Tuck one into the back of a wet border or among the females themselves, within about fifty feet, in the moist to wet, acidic soil the whole clan loves and full sun to part shade, and let the females carry the berries while this quiet hybrid does the essential work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892298867,"sku":"ILEX-VERT-RARI-CHIE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-410.jpg?v=1720138840"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-red-sprite","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Red Sprite'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex verticillata 'Red Sprite' is winterberry shrunk to garden size and cranked up in intensity. Where much of the landscape fades to gray, this compact native holly turns into a beacon, the bare stems packed with heavy clusters of large, glossy scarlet berries that color in fall and cling deep into winter, a living ember at the pond's edge or against fresh snow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBarely three to five feet tall and about as wide, dense and neatly rounded, 'Red Sprite' is the smallest of the well-known winterberries, sometimes sold under the older names 'Compacta' or 'Nana'. That restraint is the whole appeal: the plant delivers the full winterberry fireworks on a frame that fits a small garden, a foundation planting, or the front of a wet border, where a six-foot clone would overwhelm.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberry is a deciduous holly of eastern North American wetlands, a shrub of swamp edges, pond margins, and wet woodland from Canada to the Gulf, and the finely toothed, spineless leaves look nothing like a Christmas holly until the flowers appear. Only female plants fruit, and only with a male blooming at the same time nearby. 'Red Sprite' flowers early, so an early male such as 'Jim Dandy' is the standard partner, and the long-blooming 'Raritan Chief' will serve as well, set within about fifty feet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive 'Red Sprite' the moist to wet, acidic soil the species loves, in full sun to part shade, and the little shrub will earn a place three seasons out of four and steal the show in the fourth. Robins, cedar waxwings, and mockingbirds strip the berries through late winter, so a planting feeds birds when the landscape is otherwise lean. A few cut stems bring the same red glow indoors for the holidays. Abundance, as this small holly proves, need not be large to matter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892495475,"sku":"ILE-VERT-RED-SPRI-01G","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Ilexverticillata_RedSprite_OSU.jpg?v=1762292253"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-southern-gentleman","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Southern Gentleman'","description":"\u003cp\u003eEvery winterberry covered in red is hiding a secret, and his name is 'Southern Gentleman'. Winterberry hollies are dioecious, male and female on separate plants, and only the pollinated females set the blazing red fruit the species is grown for. No male nearby, no berries. 'Southern Gentleman' is the male who makes the show possible, and asks for none of the credit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis particular gift is timing. Winterberries only fruit when a male blooms in step with the female he is meant to pollinate, and the southern, late-blooming clones, 'Winter Red' chief among them, need a male who flowers late to match. 'Southern Gentleman' is exactly that. He carries the pollen for 'Winter Red', 'Winter Gold', 'Sparkleberry', 'Sunset', and the rest of the late crowd, and he is generous about the work: a single plant will service six to ten females within bee range, roughly fifty feet, so one gentleman keeps a whole hedge in fruit. He came out of the nursery of Bob Simpson in Vincennes, Indiana, who first listed him under the unglamorous working name 'Late Male' before the better one stuck.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDo not write him off as merely useful. He makes a vigorous, upright, rounded shrub of glossy dark green that turns soft yellow-green and bronze-purple in fall, and his small spring flowers hum with native bees doing the work he is there for. He will grow in the same wet feet the species loves, full sun to part shade, untroubled by clay or standing water as long as the soil stays acid. Native to the eastern wetlands, Ilex verticillata is one of our finest winter plants, and this is the one you plant so all the others can shine. Buy him for what he does, not for what he shows, and the red will follow.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892757619,"sku":"ILEX-VERT-SOUT-GENT-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IlexSouthernGentlemanWoodlanders2_jpg.png?v=1750798822"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-winter-red-female","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Winter Red (female)'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex verticillata 'Winter Red' is the winterberry other winterberries are measured against. A large, rounded female of the southern strain, six to ten feet high and wide, this native holly drops the summer leaves to reveal bare stems packed with profuse, glossy red berries, and where lesser clones fade, 'Winter Red' holds the color clean and bright deep into the season, right through the coldest months.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat staying power is why so many gardeners and florists call it the best of the winterberries. The berries color early and cling for months, brilliant against snow, gray bark, or a plain fence, and cut branches are a staple of holiday arrangements, holding fruit indoors for weeks. A mature stand in full berry is one of the great sights of the winter garden, and the fruit feeds robins, waxwings, and mockingbirds when little else remains.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberry is a deciduous holly of eastern North American wetlands, native from Canada to the Gulf along swamp edges, pond margins, and wet woods, and the finely toothed, spineless leaves give no hint of holly until the flowers open. Only females fruit, and only with a male blooming at the same time nearby. 'Winter Red' flowers late, so a late male such as 'Southern Gentleman' or 'Apollo' is the right partner, set within about fifty feet; the early 'Jim Dandy' will not do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive 'Winter Red' the moist to wet, acidic soil the species loves, in full sun to part shade, and let the big, rounded shrub anchor a rain garden, a pond edge, a wet swale, or the back of a mixed border, glorious in winter and quietly green the rest of the year. Plant several together for a solid wall of berries, and keep a late-blooming male in range to insure the crop.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892954227,"sku":"ILEX-VERT-WINT-RED-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-409.jpg?v=1720138849"},{"product_id":"ilex-cassine-male","title":"Ilex cassine (male)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex cassine, the Dahoon Holly, is one of the most useful evergreen hollies of the South, an upright shrub or small tree with bright green, oval, nearly spineless leaves. Female plants carry heavy crops of small, bright red berries, but this is a male selection, grown not for fruit but as the pollen partner that lets nearby female Dahoons set that red winter display.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name cassine carries a deep history. Early naturalists took the word from cassina, a name southeastern peoples gave to the caffeine-bearing hollies, and Dahoon leaves, like those of the closely related yaupon, hold a modest amount of caffeine. Coastal and interior nations brewed such holly leaves into the celebrated black drink, a dark, strong tea taken in council and ceremony; that practice was ceremonial and social rather than a household remedy, and Dahoon played a supporting part beside the stronger yaupon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild Dahoon Holly keeps to wet ground, the swamps, pond margins, and low woods of the Southeastern Coastal Plain, though the plant takes readily to ordinary garden soil so long as the ground stays acidic. Handsome and adaptable, the shrub grows into a dense, upright evergreen that tolerates both damp sites and the occasional flood.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a non-prickly evergreen, Dahoon Holly is an easy choice for a screen, a hedge, or a specimen where a softer-leaved holly is wanted, and this male plant does double duty: solid evergreen structure and the pollen a fruiting female clone requires. Set the shrub within range of female Dahoons for the best berry set, and pair the planting with wax myrtle, sweetbay, and other moist-ground Southern natives.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057893544051,"sku":"ILEX-CASS-MALE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-92.jpg?v=1720138864"},{"product_id":"ilex-latifolia-alva","title":"Ilex latifolia 'Alva'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex latifolia is the holly that stops people in their tracks, an evergreen tree carrying the largest leaves of any holly, glossy, leathery, and up to eight inches long, more like a magnolia or a loquat than the little prickly leaves most gardeners expect. The edges are finely serrated rather than spined, the surface a deep polished green, and on female trees such as 'Alva' tight clusters of small red berries stud the branches through fall and winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Latin latifolia says it plainly, broad-leaved, and the common names follow suit: lusterleaf holly for the shine, tarajo holly for the Japanese name of the tree. Native to China and Japan, the species has long been prized in Asian and Southern gardens alike for that bold, glossy foliage, and the horticulturist Michael Dirr, no easy grader, wrote that although not common in the South, lusterleaf holly certainly ranks among the best of the broadleaf evergreens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Alva' is a fine female clone of the species, selected by Ted Stephens of Nurseries Caroliniana and named for his brother. As a female, the plant sets the red berry clusters that make lusterleaf holly a winter feature, and carries the same vigorous, pyramidal habit and huge lacquered leaves that recommend the species. A named clone such as this one takes the guesswork out of a plant grown from variable seed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive lusterleaf 'Alva' room, because the tree builds into a stately pyramid of twenty-five feet and more. The plant wants sandy, well-drained, acidic loam in full sun to a little shade, and earns a place as a specimen, a tall evergreen screen, or an architectural anchor near a large building, where the outsized leaves read from a distance. Cut branches of berried, glossy foliage make a dramatic holiday green. Set a male holly within range for the fullest fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057893642355,"sku":"ILE-LATI-ALVA-01G","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-100.jpg?v=1720138867"},{"product_id":"ilex-mutchagara","title":"Ilex mutchagara","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex mutchagara is a quiet, graceful evergreen holly from Okinawa, close enough to the familiar Japanese holly, Ilex crenata, that some botanists treat it as a form of that species. The small, glossy, dark green leaves carry fine teeth along the edges but no spines at all, and the habit is open and airy rather than dense, giving the shrub a lighter, more relaxed look than the tightly sheared boxwood-substitutes it resembles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to Okinawa in the far south of Japan, mutchagara answers to the Japanese name shima-inu-tsuge, roughly the island form of the dog-boxleaf holly, a nod to that close kinship with crenata. Like the Japanese holly, this species reads more like a small-leaved boxwood than a spiny Christmas holly, and female plants ripen small black fruit rather than red, a subtle, dark-berried finish in fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA little history from the nursery: we had long labeled our plants of this holly as female, and we are indebted to a sharp-eyed customer who watched the flowers and let us know that they are, in fact, male. So the plants offered here will not fruit, but they make fine, well-behaved evergreens all the same, and a male serves as a pollen source for female hollies nearby.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eProbably about as adaptable as the common Japanese holly, though a little less cold hardy, mutchagara suits the mild Southeast, in sun or part shade and ordinary well-drained soil. The open, graceful frame works as a light informal hedge, a screen, or a fine-textured evergreen in a mixed border, and the small leaves take shearing well where a tidier shape is wanted. Pair the shrub with camellias, aucuba, and other broadleaf evergreens for an easy, layered green.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057894527091,"sku":"ILEX-MUTC-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-102.jpg?v=1720138881"},{"product_id":"ilex-cassine-female","title":"Ilex cassine (female)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex cassine, the dahoon holly, is an elegant evergreen native of the southern wetlands, and this is a fruiting female, the sex that carries the crop of small, glossy red berries. Unlike the fiercely spined American holly, dahoon holds narrow, smooth-edged, bright green leaves that are a pleasure to plant near a path, and in fall and winter the branches string themselves with scarlet fruit against that clean green. Grown as a large shrub or a small tree, dahoon is one of the most useful evergreen hollies for the South.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA word every holly buyer should hear: this is a dioecious plant, with male and female flowers on separate plants, so a female like this one will only set berries when a male dahoon, or another compatible holly blooming at the same time, grows within reach of the bees. Plant a male somewhere nearby and the reward is heavy, reliable fruit; plant a female alone and the berries will not come. The small greenish-white spring flowers feed bees, and the winter berries feed the birds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDahoon is a plant of swamps, pond edges, and wet flatwoods along the coastal plain from the Carolinas to Texas, and takes happily to wet ground, standing water, and heavy rain where many evergreens sulk. In the garden the plant is more forgiving still, thriving on ordinary moist, acid soil in full sun or part shade, asking mainly that the roots not bake dry. Growth is steady rather than fast, building over the years into a dense, glossy screen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUse Ilex cassine as an evergreen screen or hedge, a berrying specimen, or a small tree for a rain garden, a pond margin, or any low, wet spot that needs a handsome, non-prickly evergreen. The persistent red fruit brings birds through the winter, and the smooth foliage makes the plant safe and pleasant beside walks and seating. For a native, wildlife-friendly, wet-tolerant evergreen holly, few match the easygoing dahoon.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057894953075,"sku":"ILE-CASS-FEMA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Ilexcassine_female.jpg?v=1784325148"},{"product_id":"ilex-x-attenuata-alagold","title":"Ilex x attenuata 'Alagold'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Foster hollies are among the most planted evergreens in the South, a group of hybrids between the native dahoon, Ilex cassine, and the native American holly, Ilex opaca, raised at Foster Nursery in northern Alabama. They carry narrow, dark, lightly spined leaves on a neat pyramidal frame and fruit heavily in red. 'Alagold' is the exception in color: a yellow-berried seedling of Foster number two, hanging clear amber-gold fruit each winter against dark olive-green foliage, on the same dependable, upright, tree-like holly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYellow-fruited hollies have a long hold on collectors, prized for the way the gold reads warm where red reads bright, and for the surprise of a holly that breaks the Christmas-card expectation. 'Alagold' keeps all the working virtues of a Foster holly, the glossy evergreen density, the wildlife value, the clean pyramidal outline, and simply trades scarlet for amber. Songbirds take the fruit through winter, though, as with all hollies, the berries are for the birds and not for people, being mildly toxic if eaten.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFoster hollies came out of Foster Nursery as chance hybrids of two Southeastern natives, and 'Alagold' arose as a yellow-berried seedling within that line. The Foster clones are notably self-fruitful, setting a good crop with no mate in sight, though a male of either parent species nearby only improves the show. That reliability, and the amber fruit, make the plant an easy, distinctive evergreen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive 'Alagold' room to become a small tree, twenty feet and more in time, and use the upright pyramid as a specimen, a tall evergreen screen, or a corner anchor where the gold berries can glow against dark foliage or a winter sky. The color pairs beautifully with red-berried hollies for a two-tone winter planting, and the lacquered, fruited branches cut well for holiday greenery. Full sun to part shade and moist, well-drained, acidic soil suit the plant best.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057895051379,"sku":"ILE-ATTE-ALAG-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1004.jpg?v=1720138894"},{"product_id":"ilex-spinigera-female","title":"Ilex spinigera (female)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex spinigera is a holly with a deep past, a rare evergreen from the Hyrcanian forests that ring the southern Caspian Sea in northern Iran. Small, glossy, dark green leaves edged with fine spines clothe a dense small tree or large shrub, and on female plants such as this one bright red berries glow against the foliage through fall and into winter, the classic holly effect on an uncommonly ancient plant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThose Hyrcanian woods are living museums. When Ice Age glaciers swept away the broadleaf forests of Europe, a band of them survived along the sheltered Caspian slopes, and Ilex spinigera is one of the relics that came through, a remnant of an ancient Arcto-Tertiary flora and one of only a handful of hollies native to southwest Asia. To grow this holly is to keep a small piece of that vanished forest.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet spinigera means spine-bearing, for the neatly toothed, prickly leaf, and the plant is a close eastern cousin of the familiar English holly, Ilex aquifolium, which it resembles in miniature. Shade is no trouble; in the wild the holly grows in the forest understory beneath taller trees, so dappled light or even fairly deep shade suits the plant well, an unusual and useful trait in an evergreen holly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRarely offered and little known in American gardens, Caspian holly makes a distinctive evergreen specimen for a shaded or woodland-edge spot, a collector's holly, or a quiet, glossy screen in part to full shade and moist, well-drained soil. As a female, this plant needs a male holly in range to set the red fruit. Give the roots shelter from harsh, drying winter wind, and pair the shrub with other broadleaf evergreens under high shade.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057895149683,"sku":"ILEX-SPIN-FEMA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1531.jpg?v=1720138896"},{"product_id":"ilex-serrata-x-verticellata-apollo","title":"Ilex serrata x verticellata 'Apollo'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex 'Apollo' has one job in the garden, and does it superbly: pollination. A vigorous hybrid deciduous holly from the U.S. National Arboretum, crossing the Japanese winterberry, Ilex serrata, with the native American winterberry, Ilex verticillata, 'Apollo' was bred and released specifically as the male partner for the celebrated female 'Sparkleberry', and stands in equally well for 'Winter Red'.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberries carry male and female flowers on separate plants, and a female sets fruit only when a male blooms alongside it, so choosing a pollinizer that flowers at the right time is the whole trick. 'Apollo' blooms late, in step with the late-flowering females, and a single male will service a group of them planted within range. Without that partner the showiest female winterberry stands bare all winter; with it, the branches fill with fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot that 'Apollo' is a plain thing to hide. The hybrid vigor shows in strong, upright growth to ten or twelve feet, new leaves flushed burgundy-red before they settle to green, and a clean yellow turn in fall before the leaves drop. The name winterberry belongs really to the females and their fruit, but 'Apollo' earns a place as a full, leafy backdrop through the growing season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet 'Apollo' where a pollinizer is needed but not necessarily seen: the back of a border, a hedgerow, a damp thicket, or a wildlife planting, within about fifty feet of the female winterberries meant to fruit. Give the roots the moist to wet, acidic soil the whole clan loves, in full sun to part shade. One 'Apollo' quietly lights a whole stand of 'Sparkleberry' and 'Winter Red' with berries for the winter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057895542899,"sku":"ILEX-SERR-VERT-APOL-01G","price":18.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1990.jpg?v=1720138905"},{"product_id":"ilex-cornuta-dor","title":"Ilex cornuta 'D'Or'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex cornuta 'D'Or' is the golden-fruited version of a garden classic, a glossy evergreen Chinese holly hung through fall and winter with large, clear yellow berries in place of the usual red. The dark green, leathery leaves are nearly spineless, most carrying just a single spine at the tip, so the effect is polished rather than fierce, the bright fruit standing out cleanly against the deep foliage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant began as a happy accident. Sometime in the 1950s, on a Burford holly in Columbus, Georgia, a single branch sported yellow fruit rather than red, and the horticulturist Fred Galle spotted the oddity and propagated it at Callaway Gardens. 'D'Or', French for of gold, records the color, and in every other respect the holly matches the familiar 'Burfordii': the same vigor, the same handsome habit, the same single-spined leaf, but with berries the color of amber.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species behind the sport, Ilex cornuta, is the Chinese holly, native to eastern China and Korea and long grown in the South for glossy evergreen toughness. The epithet cornuta means horned, for the stiff spines that arm the leaves of the wild form, though generations of selection have softened that armament in garden clones like this one. Holly flowers are small and white, easy to miss, but the bees find them, and on a female holly such as 'D'Or' they set the fruit that follows.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRarely offered, 'D'Or' deserves a spot where the yellow fruit can be enjoyed against evergreen green: a sunny to lightly shaded bed with well-drained soil, a specimen by an entry, an unusual evergreen hedge, or a foil for red-berried hollies nearby. Like the standard Burford, the plant can grow considerably larger than a label suggests, so give the roots room. A few cuttings of the golden-berried branches bring something different to a winter arrangement.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896001651,"sku":"ILE-CORN-DOR-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1943.jpg?v=1720138915"},{"product_id":"ilex-x-koehneana-ilex-latifolia-x-i-aquifolium-hohman","title":"Ilex x koehneana (Ilex latifolia x I. aquifolium) ‘Hohman’","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex x koehneana, the Koehne or chestnut-leaf holly, is a bold hybrid between the Asian lusterleaf holly, Ilex latifolia, and the European holly, Ilex aquifolium, combining the big glossy leaf of one parent with the classic red berries and spined margins of the other. 'Hohman' is one of the finest of the group for the South: a large, dense, pyramidal evergreen carrying handsome dark green, serrated leaves and heavy crops of bright red fruit, building to twenty-five feet in time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a holly in the grand, Christmas-card manner, the lustrous spined leaves and scarlet berries that the European holly made famous, but on a plant far better suited to Southern heat than true English holly, thanks to the tough Asian parent. The berried branches are the classic holiday green, and songbirds strip the fruit through winter; as with all hollies, the berries feed the birds and not people, being mildly toxic if eaten. A female clone, 'Hohman' needs a compatible male holly within range to fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plant was raised by, or named for, the late Henry Hohman of the famous Kingsville Nurseries in Maryland, a legendary source of choice woody plants in the mid-twentieth century. The Koehne hybrids from that era have proven themselves durable, handsome landscape evergreens across the middle and lower South, and 'Hohman' remains among the best known.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive 'Hohman' the space a large pyramidal holly deserves, twenty to twenty-five feet tall and roughly half as wide, and use the plant as a specimen, a tall clipped or informal hedge, a screen, or a dark evergreen anchor at the corner of a large building. The glossy foliage reads well from a distance and takes shearing; the red winter fruit shows best against the deep green. Full sun to part shade and good, well-drained soil suit the plant, with a male holly nearby for the fullest crop.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896132723,"sku":"ILEX-KOEH-HOHM-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2024.jpg?v=1720138918"},{"product_id":"ilex-cornuta-x-aquifolium-edward-j-stevens","title":"Ilex cornuta x aquifolium 'Edward J. Stevens'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex 'Edward J. Stevens' is the male companion to one of the most popular hollies in American gardens, and a robust evergreen quite apart from that role. The plant builds a dense, broadly pyramidal shrub or small tree, to fifteen feet and more, clothed in lustrous dark green leaves with only light spining. In spring the small white flowers open thick with pollen, and that pollen is the whole point.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe story starts in the garden of Nellie R. Stevens in Oxford, Maryland, where a Chinese holly, Ilex cornuta, and an English holly, Ilex aquifolium, crossed on their own and dropped vigorous hybrid seedlings. One became the celebrated female 'Nellie R. Stevens', heavy with red fruit; another, named 'Edward J. Stevens', turned out male. The two share the same fine hybrid parentage, glossy foliage, dense habit, and easy vigor, but only the male carries the pollen the female needs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat partnership is the reason to grow this holly. 'Nellie R. Stevens' fruits far more heavily with a compatible male in range, and 'Edward J. Stevens' is the classic choice, blooming in step and setting the female shrubs alight with berries. Carrying no fruit, the male stays cleaner underfoot, an advantage in commercial and institutional plantings where fallen berries and seedlings are a nuisance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEven without berries the plant earns a place. The dense pyramidal form and dark evergreen foliage make a fine screen, a tall hedge, a windbreak, or a background layer behind flowering shrubs, in full sun and well-drained soil. Set 'Edward J. Stevens' within pollinating distance of 'Nellie R. Stevens' or other compatible hollies, and one male will service several females.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896329331,"sku":"ILEX-CORN-AQUI-EDWA-01G","price":34.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1902.jpg?v=1720138925"},{"product_id":"ilex-myrtifolia-x-opaca-sand-pond","title":"Ilex myrtifolia x opaca 'Sand Pond'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex 'Sand Pond' is a Woodlanders introduction with a good story and better berries, a natural hybrid between two southeastern native hollies: the stately American holly, Ilex opaca, and the fine-textured myrtle-leaf holly, Ilex myrtifolia. The cross carries small, narrow, glossy evergreen leaves midway between the parents, on a plant that colors up each fall with an unusually heavy set of large red berries.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant came out of the wild. We found and propagated 'Sand Pond' from a single tree growing in Screven County, Georgia, in a spot where both parent species happened to grow close enough to cross on their own. Spontaneous hybrids like this one turn up now and then where two hollies overlap, and now and then one proves worth naming; this seedling, with the narrow evergreen leaves and generous fruit, was clearly one of those.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn leaf and effect 'Sand Pond' recalls the popular 'Foster' holly, itself a hybrid of Ilex opaca with the dahoon, Ilex cassine, and shares that neat, small-leaved, upright look that has made Foster hollies a landscape staple. The difference is in the fruit: 'Sand Pond' sets the red berries thickly and large, a bright winter show, and we expect the plant to build into a small to medium evergreen tree that may yet become far more widely grown.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor a Southern garden 'Sand Pond' offers the best of the pyramidal evergreen hollies in a slightly smaller, distinctly heavy-fruiting package: a specimen, a tall screen, a corner anchor, or a wildlife planting where birds work the winter berries. Give the tree full sun to part shade and moist, well-drained soil, and set a male holly within range to insure the crop. A cut branch of the berried evergreen foliage is a natural for the holidays.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896394867,"sku":"ILE-MYRT-OPAC-SAND-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1822.jpg?v=1720138928"},{"product_id":"ilex-coriacea","title":"Ilex coriacea","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex coriacea, the large gallberry, is a tall evergreen holly of the Southern wetlands, close kin to the familiar inkberry but built on a bigger scale, with broader, leathery, dark green leaves and larger fruit. On female plants the berries ripen to a shining black, a quiet contrast to the glossy foliage through fall and winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet coriacea means leathery, for those thick, durable leaves, but the plant is better known to some by another common name, sweet gallberry, and to beekeepers most of all. Gallberry flowers pour out nectar, and the pale, mild, slow-to-crystallize honey they yield is among the most prized in Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas, a regional treasure built entirely on these unassuming white spring blooms.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild large gallberry belongs to the wet, acid soils of the Southeastern Coastal Plain, from Virginia to Texas, where the shrub often grows alongside the related inkberry holly, Ilex glabra, in baygalls, pocosins, and low pinelands. The larger leaves and larger berries set the two apart, and both thrive where the ground stays damp and sour.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeldom seen in gardens, large gallberry rewards a spot with moist, acidic soil and a little care: mulch the roots and keep the plant watered, and the shrub settles into an easy, dense evergreen for a pond margin, a rain garden, a wildlife border, or an informal screen. The spring flowers feed bees, the black fall fruit feeds birds, and a female set near a pollinator will carry the fullest crop. Pair the shrub with inkberry, sweetbay, and swamp azalea in the same damp company.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896853619,"sku":"ILEX-CORI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1680.jpg?v=1720138943"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticellata-winter-gold","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Winter Gold'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex verticillata is the winterberry, the native deciduous holly grown not for evergreen leaves but for the astonishing display that comes after they fall: bare gray stems packed end to end with bright fruit, lit up across the dead of winter. 'Winter Gold' plays that trick in an unexpected color, trading the usual fire-engine red for warm gold blushed with soft orange-pink, a glowing, gentler note against snow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberry belongs to the wet places of eastern North America, the swamp edges, pond margins, and damp thickets from Canada to the Gulf, and the finely toothed, spineless leaves look nothing like a Christmas holly until the flowers give the family away. The name verticillata, whorled, describes the way those small flowers and leaves cluster along the twigs. 'Winter Gold' arose as a sport of the famous red 'Winter Red', keeping the heavy crop but changing the color.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs with all winterberries, only female plants fruit, and only when a male of matching bloom time grows nearby. 'Winter Gold' flowers late, so a late-blooming male such as 'Apollo' or 'Southern Gentleman' is needed within about fifty feet, not the early 'Jim Dandy'. Get the timing right and one male will set a whole group of females heavy with berries; get it wrong and the branches stay bare.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive 'Winter Gold' the moist to wet, acidic soil winterberry loves, in full sun to part shade, and let the shrub do what it does best: light a rain garden, a pond edge, a wet swale, or a mixed border through the coldest months. Songbirds strip the fruit in late winter, and a few cut branches of gold berries bring something rare to a holiday arrangement. Woodland settlers knew the plant as fever bush, a nod to the folk history behind this quietly spectacular native.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896919155,"sku":"ILE-VERT-WINT-GOLD-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2147.jpg?v=1720138946"},{"product_id":"ilex-paraguariensis","title":"Ilex paraguariensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex paraguariensis is the holly behind maté, the caffeine-rich tea poured from a gourd and sipped through a metal straw across Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and southern Brazil. As a plant, yerba maté is a broadleaf evergreen holly, a shrub or small tree with dark, leathery, serrated leaves, closely resembling the native dahoon holly, Ilex cassine, of the southeastern United States, and carrying the same small white flowers and, on female plants, small red berries.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor the Guaraní and Tupi peoples of subtropical South America, maté was food, medicine, and ritual long before Europeans arrived, drunk as a stimulant, a digestive, and a general tonic, and shared hand to hand as a gesture of welcome. That custom grew into a daily habit for whole nations, and the leaf, dried and steeped, remains one of the great social drinks of the continent, now carried worldwide for the lift and the antioxidants alike. The medicinal notes below set out that tradition and the research around it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYerba maté remains rare in North American gardens, grown mostly by collectors drawn to plants with real cultural and economic weight. Woodlanders has long sought out exactly this kind of plant, the useful and the unusual, well beyond the ordinary nursery list, and yerba maté sits squarely in that tradition: a working tea plant that also happens to be a handsome evergreen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden yerba maté wants what the wild plant knows: fertile, well-drained, acidic soil, steady moisture, and light shade or sun in a warm, humid climate. The upright, glossy evergreen form suits an edible landscape, a cultural or ethnobotanical collection, or a specimen where the story can be told, and in zones eight and warmer the leaves can be dried and brewed for homegrown maté. Where frost is hard, grow the plant in a large pot and move the container under cover for winter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896984691,"sku":"ILEX-PARA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IlexparaguariensisOregonStateWoodlanders3.jpg?v=1747854095"},{"product_id":"illicium-floridanum-halleys-comet","title":"Illicium floridanum 'Halley's Comet'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe anise trees, genus Illicium, are aromatic broadleaf evergreens of the star-anise family, Schisandraceae, named from the Latin illicium, an allurement, for the scent of their leaves. Illicium floridanum, the Florida anise, is the Southeast's own contribution, a shade-loving evergreen native along shaded streambanks and seepage slopes from the Florida panhandle to Louisiana. 'Halley's Comet' is one of the best selections, a vigorous but compact form with especially dark foliage and a heavy show of velvety, star-shaped flowers in deep wine-red.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn bloom the flowers seem to hover against the glossy leaves like a scatter of dark red stars, and the plant flowers more freely than the run of the species, giving real drama to the spring shade garden. The leathery, three to six inch leaves are anise-scented when crushed, pleasant and characteristic of the genus, though, like all Florida anise, the foliage and fruit are toxic and not the culinary star anise of the spice rack. That same chemistry makes the plant reliably deer-resistant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'Halley's Comet' was selected by the plantsman David Ellis and introduced by the former Magnolia Nursery of Chunchula, Alabama, a nursery long respected for its work with Southern natives. The selection stands out for intense flower color, strong repeat performance, and a denser, more compact habit than the wild plant, usually settling around six to eight feet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFlorida anise wants what few flowering shrubs will take: real shade and steady moisture. Use 'Halley's Comet' for woodland borders and shaded foundations, massed beneath canopy trees, or as an evergreen screen in a moist, shady spot where little else will bloom. The dark foliage gives year-round structure, and the rich flowers bring unexpected depth to spring shade. Ferns, evergreen hollies, native azaleas, and hydrangeas make natural companions; keep the soil from drying, and mulch to mimic the woodland floor.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057897214067,"sku":"ILLI-FLOR-HALL-COME-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1371.jpg?v=1720138953"},{"product_id":"illicium-mexicanum-x-floridanum-album-woodland-ruby","title":"Illicium mexicanum x floridanum album 'Woodland Ruby'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe anise trees, genus Illicium, are aromatic broadleaf evergreens of the star-anise family, Schisandraceae, prized as some of the finest flowering shrubs for shade. 'Woodland Ruby' is a Woodlanders introduction and one of the showiest of the group, a hybrid between the Mexican anise, Illicium mexicanum, and a white-flowered form of the native Florida anise, Illicium floridanum. The cross carries ruby-pink, star-shaped flowers larger than those of either parent, dangling from long slender stalks over glossy, aromatic evergreen leaves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe great virtue of 'Woodland Ruby' is bloom. Where most anise trees flower in a single spring flush, this hybrid opens ruby-pink stars over an extended season, spring into fall, and carries them on four-inch pedicels that let the flowers hang free and show. The mexicanum parent lends both the long bloom and a greater tolerance of sun, so 'Woodland Ruby' takes more light than the shade-bound Florida anise as long as the roots stay moist. As with all ornamental anises, the aromatic foliage is toxic if eaten and unrelated to culinary star anise, and deer accordingly leave the plant alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe hybrid was raised and introduced by Woodlanders, a cross that has become one of the nursery's best-known contributions to Southern shade gardening. Combining the long bloom and sun tolerance of the Mexican species with the hardiness and grace of the native, 'Woodland Ruby' offers a longer, richer flowering season than either parent alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse 'Woodland Ruby' as a flowering evergreen for part to full shade, or for filtered sun where the soil can be kept moist, as a specimen, a shade border anchor, or an informal screen. The long season of ruby stars brings color to shaded ground for months, and the glossy foliage holds structure year-round. Ferns, hostas, hydrangeas, camellias, and other shade companions set the plant off; keep the soil moist and fertile, and mulch to hold it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057897279603,"sku":"ILLI-MEXI-WOOD-RUBY-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/0F14389E-ED03-498A-9083-4E61419B39AA.jpg?v=1773697819"},{"product_id":"illicium-floridanum-variegated","title":"Illicium floridanum (variegated)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe anise trees, genus Illicium, are aromatic broadleaf evergreens of the star-anise family, Schisandraceae, their Latin name meaning an allurement, for the spicy scent of the leaves. Illicium floridanum, the Florida anise, is a Southeastern native of shaded streambanks and moist ravines from Georgia to Louisiana, valued as one of the finest flowering evergreens for shade. This is a variegated selection, carrying the usual two-inch, starfish-shaped maroon flowers over foliage marked with a subtle, quiet green-on-green variegation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe variegation is understated, a soft patterning of lighter and darker green rather than the bold cream or gold of a splashier plant, and it gives the dark evergreen foliage a gentle, dappled depth in the shade. The crushed leaves are anise-scented, characteristic of the genus, and, as with every Florida anise, the foliage and fruit are toxic if eaten and unrelated in use to culinary star anise. That toxicity is also why deer leave the plant alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis form was found in northwest Florida by Steve Riefler, who noticed the pairing of the deep maroon-purple flowers with the subtle leaf variegation, an uncommon combination in a native shrub. Like the wild species, the plant builds into a medium, rounded evergreen of eight to ten feet, adaptable to most garden soils that are not too dry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSite the variegated Florida anise in shade or semi-shade with moist, rich soil, where the quiet foliage patterning and dark flowers can be seen up close. Use as a woodland specimen, a shaded foundation shrub, or an evergreen screen in a damp, shady spot, and let the subtle variegation lighten a dim corner. Ferns, hostas, hellebores, and native azaleas make fitting company; keep the ground evenly moist and mulched.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057897377907,"sku":"ILLI-FLOR-VARI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-119.jpg?v=1720138959"},{"product_id":"illicium-floridanum","title":"Illicium floridanum","description":"\u003cp\u003eIllicium floridanum, the Florida anise, is a lush evergreen shrub of the southern woods, prized for glossy, dark green leaves that release a clean anise or licorice scent when crushed. In mid-spring the plant hangs itself with curious flowers, two inches across and shaped like deep maroon starfish, their many narrow petals radiating from the center. Dense, shade-loving, and richly aromatic in leaf, Florida anise brings a bold, tropical-looking evergreen presence to a shady garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers hold a curious secret of their own. Where the crushed leaves smell sweetly of anise, the blooms carry an odd, fishy odor that draws the flies and beetles that pollinate them, which has earned the plant the affectionate nickname stinkbush. A more important caution belongs on the label as well: despite the name and the anise-scented foliage, Florida anise is not the source of the star anise used in cooking, that is a different species, and every part of this plant is toxic and should never be eaten.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild, Florida anise grows in the rich, moist, shaded ravines and stream banks of the Gulf coastal plain, from the Florida panhandle across to Louisiana, an understory shrub of cool, damp, low places. That heritage tells the gardener exactly what the plant wants: shade, rich acid soil, and steady moisture, the opposite of a hot, dry border. Deer, put off by the aromatic, toxic foliage, leave the plant alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive Illicium floridanum part to full shade in moist, rich, acid soil, and use the shrub as a bold evergreen for a woodland garden, a shady border, a screen in the shade, or a damp low spot where little else will thrive. The dense foliage screens and softens, the maroon flowers intrigue, and the crushed leaves scent the hand of anyone who brushes past. For a native, deer-proof, aromatic evergreen for shade, Florida anise is a Southern classic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057897508979,"sku":"ILLI-FLOR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Illiciumfloridanum.jpg?v=1784325819"},{"product_id":"illicium-henryi","title":"Illicium henryi","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe anise trees, genus Illicium, are aromatic broadleaf evergreens of the star-anise family, Schisandraceae, their name from the Latin illicium, an allurement, for the scent of the leaves. Illicium henryi, the Henry anise, is the Chinese member of the group, a handsome, dense, pyramidal to rounded evergreen with waxy flowers in shades of coppery pink to deep carmine red and aromatic, glossy foliage. The plant honors Augustine Henry, the great Irish plant collector who botanized central China at the close of the nineteenth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHenry anise owes its place in American gardens largely to Woodlanders, who introduced the plant to the trade here after obtaining stock from the famous Hillier Nurseries in England. Much admired in the Woodlanders garden over the years, Henry anise has since become a little more widely grown, though the plant remains uncommon, a connoisseur's evergreen for the shade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the draw, up to twenty narrow tepals apiece in a rich pink to red, waxy and star-like, carried in spring against dark evergreen leaves. As with the other ornamental anises, the aromatic foliage is not the culinary star anise, and the plant is best enjoyed for looks and scent rather than any use in the kitchen. The same aromatic oils that scent the leaves keep browsing deer at bay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive Henry anise shade or semi-shade and good soil that stays moist but drains well, and the plant builds slowly into a clean, dense evergreen of eight to twelve feet. Use as a specimen, a shade screen, or a refined evergreen anchor in a woodland border, where the waxy spring flowers can be admired at close range. Camellias, ferns, hydrangeas, and other broadleaf evergreens make fitting company in the same cool, shaded ground.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057897738355,"sku":"ILLI-HENR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-120.jpg?v=1720138967"},{"product_id":"illicium-anisatum","title":"Illicium anisatum","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe anise trees, genus Illicium, are aromatic broadleaf evergreens of the star-anise family, Schisandraceae, named from the Latin illicium, an allurement, for the spicy scent the crushed leaves give off. Illicium anisatum is the Japanese anise, called shikimi in its homeland, a glossy, upright evergreen shrub or small tree with leathery, anise-scented leaves and pale creamy-yellow, star-shaped flowers in earliest spring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFew garden plants carry so much ceremony. In Japan the branches and evergreen leaves of shikimi are held sacred, offered at Buddhist altars, temples, and graves, and the dried leaves are ground and burned as incense, a use tied to the way insects avoid the plant and the cut foliage stays fresh. That toxicity is real: Illicium anisatum contains anisatin and related compounds and is poisonous if eaten, unlike the culinary Chinese star anise, Illicium verum, with which the plant has sometimes been dangerously confused. Grow shikimi for beauty and scent, not for the kitchen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUncommon in American gardens, Japanese anise has often been muddled with the native Illicium parviflorum, which has been widely sold and even mislabeled under this name in botanic gardens, though the shared anise fragrance is about where the resemblance ends. The true shikimi is a denser, glossier plant, slow and clean, building to twelve or fifteen feet in time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive Japanese anise a semi-shaded spot with good, moist, but well-drained soil, and the plant repays it with year-round polished evergreen structure. Use as a specimen, a screen, or an anchor in a woodland or courtyard planting, where the early flowers and aromatic leaves can be met at close range. The toxic, fragrant foliage that keeps insects and browsing deer away makes shikimi an easy, trouble-free evergreen. Ferns, hellebores, and camellias make fitting companions in the same shade.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057897803891,"sku":"ILLI-ANIS-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-115.jpg?v=1720138971"},{"product_id":"illicium-floridanum-var-album","title":"Illicium floridanum var. album","description":"\u003cp\u003eIllicium floridanum var. album is the uncommon white-flowered form of the Florida anise, all the beauty and aromatic foliage of the species, with starry spring flowers of clean white in place of the usual deep maroon. Against the glossy, dark green, anise-scented leaves, the pale, many-petaled stars seem to float, lighting up a shady corner where the darker form would simply recede. A choice and seldom-seen selection, the white Florida anise is a connoisseur's evergreen for shade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs with all the Florida anises, there are two scents to know. The leaves, crushed, smell cleanly of anise or licorice, while the flowers carry a faint fishy odor that lures the flies and beetles that pollinate them. And the same caution applies: for all the anise in the foliage, this is not the star anise of the spice rack, which comes from a different species, and every part of this plant is toxic and must never be eaten.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike the maroon form, the white Florida anise belongs to the moist, shaded woods of the Gulf coastal plain, and asks for the same in the garden: part to full shade, rich acid soil, and steady moisture, well away from hot, dry exposure. Aromatic and toxic, the foliage is reliably passed over by deer. Evergreen and dense, the plant holds a full, glossy canopy the year round and slowly builds into a rounded, well-clothed shrub.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet Illicium floridanum var. album where the pale flowers can brighten the shade, in a woodland garden, a shady border, or a screen beneath taller trees, in moist, rich, acid soil. The white blooms and light-catching foliage lift dim spaces the darker anises cannot, and the aromatic leaves reward a passing hand. For a rare, deer-proof, white-flowered evergreen for shade, few plants are as quietly distinctive.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057898033267,"sku":"ILLI-FLOR-ALBU-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Illiciumfloridanumvar.albumJCRA.jpg?v=1784326058"},{"product_id":"illicium-parviflorum-florida-sunshine","title":"Illicium parviflorum 'Florida Sunshine'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIllicium parviflorum, the Ocala or small anise, is a rare Florida endemic, an aromatic evergreen of the star-anise family, Schisandraceae, tougher and more sun-tolerant than its showier cousin the Florida anise. 'Florida Sunshine' is the selection that made the species famous: a form whose foliage glows chartreuse-gold through spring and summer, holding the anise scent of the genus in leaves that light up a shaded corner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe real show comes with the cold. As the weather cools in fall the gold brightens to a near-screaming yellow, then softens toward parchment by midwinter, and at the same time the upper stems flush a brilliant red that plays against the pale leaves. Few evergreens do anything so dramatic in January. The winter foliage will scorch in strong sun, so light or part shade keeps the color clean, a stunning beacon in the cold-season garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'Florida Sunshine' was selected and introduced by Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery, grown from three golden seedlings of the wild species that Avent brought back from a 2000 visit to the Florida plantsman Charles Webb. After several years of evaluation one plant was chosen and named, and the selection has become one of the most popular gold-leaved shrubs in Southern gardens. As with the other ornamental anises, the aromatic foliage is toxic if eaten and unrelated to culinary star anise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse 'Florida Sunshine' as a living light source in shade: at the back of a woodland border, against dark evergreens, beside a path, or massed to lead the eye through a shady garden. The gold reads from across the yard, and the red winter stems reward a close look. Give light to part shade and moist, well-drained soil, and pair with ferns, hostas, dark-leaved hollies, and hellebores that set off the glowing foliage. Deer leave the aromatic leaves alone.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057898295411,"sku":"ILLI-PARV-FLOR-SUNS-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/44A56333-9483-4C59-8F59-4297C27F791C.jpg?v=1727269766"},{"product_id":"indigofera-incarnata","title":"Indigofera incarnata","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe genus is the one that turned the Lowcountry blue. Indigofera gave colonial South Carolina its great cash crop alongside rice, the dye that Eliza Lucas Pinckney coaxed into commercial cultivation around Charleston in the 1740s and that filled the colony's coffers for a generation, made with skill drawn largely from enslaved West Africans. That fortune rested on a tropical cousin, Indigofera tinctoria, but the family trait runs through the whole genus, and the leaves of this one will give up the same blue if you care to steep them. We grow the plant for the flowers instead.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIndigofera incarnata, the Chinese indigo, comes from the streambanks and open woods of China and Japan, and earns the other common name, summer wisteria, honestly: through June and July the plant hangs narrow four to eight inch racemes of small pea flowers, twenty to forty to a spike, in a clear soft pink. The bloom opens on the current year's wood and carries on in scattered flushes toward September. (The white-flowered form is sold separately as 'Alba'; this is the rose-colored species, whatever a careless label might once have suggested.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLow and traveling, a foot or two tall and three or four wide, the Chinese indigo suckers gently into a soft mound of fine pinnate foliage, and, being a legume, gives nitrogen back to the ground it sits in. Cut the plant hard in late winter and it returns to flower right through the heat, a quiet rose-pink drift in the stretch of summer when most shrubs have already called it a year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse Chinese indigo as a flowering groundcover on a bank or at the front of a border, where the low, spreading habit can knit awkward ground together and the long pink season fills the summer lull. Give sun, a little afternoon shade where summers run brutal, and decent drainage, and pair with grasses, late perennials, or other tough sun-lovers; bees and other pollinators work the flowers all season.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057898426483,"sku":"INDI-INCA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-413.jpg?v=1720138990"},{"product_id":"indigofera-incarnata-alba","title":"Indigofera incarnata 'Alba'","description":"\u003cp\u003eNo genus carries more Carolina history in its name than this one. Indigofera means indigo-bearing, and indigo was the blue that built the colonial Lowcountry: in the 1740s a young Eliza Lucas Pinckney coaxed a successful crop out of the land around Charleston, and for a generation the dye stood second only to rice among the colony's exports, made with skill drawn largely from enslaved West Africans, until the Revolution cut the British bounty and the fields went quiet. The plant that did that work was Indigofera tinctoria.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is their ornamental cousin, grown for the eye rather than the vat. Indigofera incarnata is the Chinese indigo, and incarnata means flesh-colored, after the soft pink the species usually wears; 'Alba' is the white-flowered form, cooler and quieter. Fine, almost ferny pinnate leaves set off long racemes of small white pea flowers from early summer well into fall, opening a few at a time so there is always something coming.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese make a low, slowly spreading subshrub, a foot or two high and wider than that, the kind of soft-scaled groundcover that knits an awkward slope together. The flowers come on new growth, so a hard cut in late winter only improves the plant, the way it does a buddleia. Being a legume, the shrub fixes its own nitrogen and asks little of the soil.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive 'Alba' sun, a little afternoon shade where summers run brutal, and decent drainage, and the plant will quietly cover ground that nothing tidier would forgive. Use on a bank, at the front of a border, or spilling over a low wall, where the white bloom cools a hot planting and lengthens the season; pair with grasses and late perennials, and let the bees find the flowers all summer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057898492019,"sku":"INDI-INCA-ALBA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-414.jpg?v=1720138993"},{"product_id":"indigofera-heterantha","title":"Indigofera heterantha","description":"\u003cp\u003eIndigofera heterantha, the Himalayan indigo, is a graceful deciduous shrub from the mountains of the western Himalaya, a nitrogen-fixing legume grown for a long summer-into-fall run of rosy-purple pea flowers over ferny foliage. Michael Dirr, in his Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, notes that the species has performed admirably in his Georgia trials, and the plant has earned a quiet following among Southern gardeners for toughness and length of bloom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe genus name Indigofera means indigo-bearing, after the blue dye that a few tropical relatives, chiefly Indigofera tinctoria, once supplied to half the world. In the 1740s that dye became the great cash crop of colonial South Carolina, developed by Eliza Lucas Pinckney around Charleston and made with skill drawn largely from enslaved West Africans. The Himalayan indigo is an ornamental cousin, grown for flowers rather than dye, but the lineage lends the plant a certain depth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom early summer through fall, five-inch racemes of rosy-purple, pea-shaped flowers rise from the leaf axils, carried on arching stems clothed in fine, many-leafleted compound foliage. The overall effect is airy and unforced, a soft haze of color rather than a solid mass. The shrub reaches four to eight feet where winters are mild, dying back and resprouting in colder gardens, and flowers on the current season's growth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive Himalayan indigo sun or a little afternoon shade and well-drained soil, and cut the plant back in late winter to keep it dense and floriferous. As a legume it asks for no rich feeding and tolerates lean ground and drought once established. Use in a mixed border, a pollinator planting, or against a warm wall in cooler regions, where bees work the long season of rosy bloom; pair with ornamental grasses and late perennials that echo the airy texture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057898590323,"sku":"INDI-HETE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1533.jpg?v=1720138996"},{"product_id":"indigofera-amblyantha","title":"Indigofera amblyantha","description":"\u003cp\u003eTed Stephens of Nurseries Caroliniana calls this one of his top ten favorite plants, and the reason is bloom. Indigofera amblyantha, the pink indigo, is a fast, airy, deciduous shrub from the streambanks of central China, a nitrogen-fixing legume in the vast genus Indigofera, and one of the longest-flowering hardy shrubs a Southern garden can grow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe genus carries real history. Indigofera means indigo-bearing, and the dye that colored the colonial world came chiefly from tropical kin such as Indigofera tinctoria. In the 1740s Eliza Lucas Pinckney coaxed indigo into a commercial crop around Charleston, where for a generation the blue dye stood second only to rice among South Carolina's exports, and the skill of making it drew heavily on the knowledge of enslaved West Africans. Indigofera amblyantha is not a dye plant, carrying only trace precursors and nothing commercial, but the lineage is part of what makes the genus worth knowing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat amblyantha does instead is flower without pause. Soft pink, pea-shaped blooms open in upright racemes at nearly every leaf node from late spring into October, a six-month window that almost no other hardy shrub can match, the first spikes still opening fresh flowers as frost arrives, followed by slender dark purple seedpods. The plant grows six to eight feet in a season on airy, gray-green, pinnate foliage with a see-through quality that lets companions show behind it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHardy to about zone 6, pink indigo dies back in hard winters and resprouts from the base each spring, so a hard cut to twelve or eighteen inches in late winter only makes for denser, better growth. As a legume the shrub fixes its own nitrogen and thrives on lean soil in full sun to light shade. Use amblyantha in a cottage border, a pollinator planting, or anywhere a long, soft season of pink is wanted; bees work the flowers steadily through the summer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057898688627,"sku":"INDI-AMBL-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IndigoferaamblyanthaMBG.jpg?v=1745771555"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/plants-starting-with-i.oembed?page=4","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}