This small to medium shrub is in the mint family. It is a small shrub with gray-green narrow Rosemary-like aromatic leaves. The flowers are bluish and larger than other Conradinas. It is native on old dunes and deep sandy soil at scattered locations along the east coast of Florida. It needs a sunny site with well-drained sandy soil. Conradina grandiflora is a federally listed endangered species. NOT FOR SALE IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE
The Himalayan white pine is one of the most graceful of the large conifers, a broad, elegant tree hung with long, soft, blue-green needles that droop from the branches in feathery sweeps. Borne five to a bundle in the manner of the white pines, the needles give the whole tree a silvered, weeping softness, and the long, resinous, banana-shaped cones dangle among them like ornaments.
The Yuzuquat is a tri-generic hybrid, a curiosity even among unusual citrus. One parent is the yuzu, itself a cross of Citrus ichangensis and Citrus reticulata; the other is the 'Nagami' kumquat, Fortunella margarita. From that three-way pedigree comes an attractive evergreen citrus that bears sour, juicy, lemon-like fruits about the size of a chicken egg.
Vigorous spreading, deciduous hybrid rose climber also known as 'Spanish Beauty'. It has large pink flowers that are red in bud. It blooms in the spring. Its foliage is dark green and relatively free of common rose problems. I can grow in full sun or on a north wall. Heavy petal flowers tend to nod which is advantage in roses usually seen from below. This hybrid by Pedro Dot of Spain was introduced in 1927.
This small tree of Chinese origin has showy white flowers and fall foliage that is red or reddish. The smooth whitish trunks with exfoliating bark are an important ornamental feature. It is a plant for moist but well-drained acidic soil in sun or half shade. To 15 to 25 feet. Dirr, Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, says: "....a delightful small landscape plant that should be more widely used." and: "Hardy to Boston and should be pursued by discriminating gardeners."
Lagerstroemia limii is the crepe myrtle almost nobody grows, and that is precisely the reason to seek the plant out. Rare in gardens and known mostly to breeders and botanic collections, this Chinese species trades the familiar look of the summer crepe myrtle for something bolder and stranger: broad, blue-green leaves far larger than those of the common sort, and open, pyramidal panicles of lavender-pink bloom carried through the warm months.
Baptisia minor is the dwarf of the blue false indigos, a compact native perennial that gives all the drama of the well-known Baptisia australis on a smaller, tidier frame. Often treated botanically as Baptisia australis var. minor, the plant stands lower and more compact, yet carries full-sized spires of indigo-blue, pea-shaped flowers held well clear of the blue-green foliage. Much admired in the Woodlanders garden, this is a perennial that settles into a sunny bed for decades.
We are indebted to Roger Gossler of Oregon for this plant. He describes it as one of the rarest Stewartias, with a large maroon calyx that will surround the seed pods. ãVery beautifulà, he says.
Sweetbay magnolia is one of the loveliest and most useful of the native magnolias, a tree of moist and swampy ground across the eastern United States from Massachusetts to Texas. The northern plants, Magnolia virginiana var. virginiana, are shrubby and deciduous; the southern, var. australis, grow into larger, evergreen trees. All share the sweetbay's gifts: leaves silvery white beneath that flash in the wind, and creamy, intensely fragrant flowers with a clean lemon scent.
Sabal tamaulipensis is a solitary fan palm from the dry limestone hills of northeastern Mexico, where the species climbs the San Carlos Mountains of Tamaulipas and neighboring Nuevo Leon. Stiff, rounded, blue-green fans are held on arching stalks above a trunk that stays short for many years, so young plants read as a fountain of palmate leaves close to the ground. In habitat the palm can eventually reach fifteen to twenty feet, though cultivated plants are slow and often stay compact, and older specimens sometimes recline on a horizontal trunk rather than standing straight. Small, fragrant, creamy flowers give way to round black fruit in the wild.
Forestiera angustifolia 'Weeping' is a distinctive pendulous form of the Texas desert olive, an intricately branched native shrub whose cascading, weeping branches make it a living piece of sculpture. Fine and twiggy, clothed in small narrow leaves, the plant drapes and tumbles in a way the wild shrub never does, and reveals a fine tracery of branches in winter once the leaves have fallen. Tough as the Texas brush country that bore it, this is a plant grown as much for form as for foliage, and a favorite subject for bonsai.
Few hardy shrubs put on a show like Caesalpinia gilliesii, the desert bird of paradise, whose summer flowers open clear yellow and send out a spray of long scarlet stamens like fireworks caught mid-burst. A legume from the dry country of Argentina and Uruguay, long naturalized across the American Southwest, the plant carries ferny, blue-green, mimosa-like foliage that sets off the flamboyant bloom. Botanists now place the species in the genus Erythrostemon, meaning red stamen, though gardeners still know the plant as Caesalpinia.
Campsis x tagliabuana 'Madame Galen' is the trumpet vine at its most garden-worthy, a vigorous deciduous climber hung all summer with clusters of big, flaring, orange to salmon-red trumpets. The vine is a hybrid between the American trumpet creeper, Campsis radicans, and the Chinese Campsis grandiflora, combining the toughness of one parent with the refinement of the other. Raised in the nineteenth century by the Tagliabue brothers at their nursery near Milan, 'Madame Galen' has remained the favorite form of the cross ever since.
Callerya reticulata, the evergreen wisteria, is one of the most graceful vines for the Southern garden, and one of the most refined. Once known to botanists as Millettia reticulata and Wisteria reticulata, this evergreen climber is not a true wisteria, though the cascading habit and aristocratic bearing recall one. A vine for porches and pergolas, the evergreen wisteria prizes quiet bloom over brash spectacle, and carries both fragrance and folklore in the tendrils.
Camellia rosaeflora is a graceful species camellia from China, one of the lesser-known kinds Woodlanders keeps in circulation for American gardeners. The habit is open and upright, the leaves small and fine for the genus, and in early spring the branches carry masses of small pink flowers, roughly an inch across and lightly double, in such profusion that the spent petals often fall to lay a soft pink carpet on the ground beneath.
Baptisia alba, white wild indigo, is a striking native perennial of tall spires of white, pea-like flowers over deep blue-green foliage. Native to the eastern and central United States, the species carries a rich history as a dye plant, used by Native American peoples and early settlers as a substitute for true indigo, and the genus name, from the Greek bapto, to dip, records that role.
When Woodlanders began in 1980, this was about the only Baptisia known to gardeners; we went on to introduce many of the species that have since become popular garden perennials. Baptisia australis, blue wild indigo, is a long-lived native, essentially a prairie plant of open glades on limestone soil, with handsome olive-green compound leaves topped in spring by spikes of bright indigo-blue, pea-like flowers.
Flame azalea is the showiest of all the native azaleas, and the one that stops hikers in their tracks on the Appalachian balds each June. The large, funnel-shaped flowers open in a fiery range that runs from clear yellow through gold and apricot to blazing orange and scarlet, carried in loose trusses just as the new leaves expand. For all that color the flowers are, unusually, without scent, but nothing about a flame azalea in full bloom feels the lack.
This South American shrub is perhaps correctly Lycianthes rantonetti. It is a scrambling vine-like shrub which is best trained up as a trellis or espalier plant where it can get up to 15 feet in mild areas. It is valued for the loose clusters of bright violet flowers produced over a long period. Needs sun and regular moisture. Can be grown as a container plant and given greenhouse protection where climate is not subtropical.
Upright deciduous tree ultimately medium sized. Abundant small white flowers and attractive cinnamon colored bark make this a desirable ornamental. Generally easier to grow than other Stewartias. (See DIR)
