{"title":"Coming Spring 2027","description":"\u003cp\u003eSpring is the loud season, the one every catalog points at, and these are the plants we are growing toward it a year out. Cuttings stuck this year and seedlings coming along now will spend the intervening seasons sizing up so that they arrive ready for the planting rush, not a moment sooner. There is a particular pleasure in claiming a plant this early, before the spring scramble, and simply waiting. Put your name on the ones you want and let the year do the growing.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"acer-griseum","title":"Acer griseum","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew trees carry a collector's story as plainly as the paperbark maple. Ernest Henry Wilson gathered seed of \u003cem\u003eAcer griseum\u003c\/em\u003e in central China in 1901 for the Veitch nursery, and for most of the twentieth century nearly every paperbark grown in Western gardens traced back to that introduction and one that followed. The maple sets abundant winged samaras, yet most are empty, a parthenocarpic habit that leaves only a small fraction viable. That quirk is why the species has always been scarce, slow to propagate, and quietly treasured wherever a good specimen takes hold.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe bark is the glory of the tree. Within two or three years the trunk and larger limbs begin to shed in papery curls of cinnamon to coppery red brown, and the peeling layers cling rather than fall, catching low winter light until the whole canopy seems lit from within. Three-part leaves, blue green through summer, turn scarlet and orange before dropping, while the small greenish yellow spring flowers pass almost unnoticed, content to leave the bark and the autumn fire to carry the season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSlow and well mannered, the paperbark maple settles at twenty to thirty feet with a rounded, oval crown, a scale that suits a small lawn, a courtyard, or the corner of a mixed border. Site this maple where the trunk can be read at close range, beside a path, a patio, or a window framed for winter, and give the bark a dark backdrop of evergreens to play against. Adaptable to clay and to both acid and alkaline ground, the tree asks only for reasonable drainage and a few patient years of watering to establish.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"1 Gallon","offer_id":42961950474355,"sku":"ACER-GRIS-01G","price":31.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"1 Quart","offer_id":42961950507123,"sku":"ACER-GRIS-01Q","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/AcergriseumWoodlanders-3.jpg?v=1750637242"},{"product_id":"aloysia-virgata","title":"Aloysia virgata","description":"\u003cp\u003eSweet almond verbena is grown for one glorious thing above all: scent. From midsummer until hard frost, \u003cem\u003eAloysia virgata\u003c\/em\u003e tips every branch with slender spikes of small white flowers that pour out an intoxicating vanilla-almond fragrance, strongest in the late afternoon and evening and carrying clear across a garden. Butterflies and hummingbirds work the spikes all season.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA vigorous, shrubby plant native to Argentina, sweet almond verbena can be trained as a small multi-stemmed tree in subtropical gardens or grown as a dieback shrub farther north, cut to the ground by winter and returning from the roots in spring. The dark green leaves are sandpapery to the touch, and the loose, open frame reaches eight to fifteen feet where the season is long.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive sweet almond verbena a sunny spot with well-drained soil, near a path, a patio, or an open window where the evening perfume can be enjoyed. Drought tolerant once established and seldom troubled by deer, the shrub pairs well with other pollinator plants in a sunny border. In zones 8 and 9 expect a return from the roots after a hard winter; farther south, a standing small tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAdditional photo courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057808773235,"sku":"ALOY-VIRG-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/AloysiavirgataMBG.jpg?v=1784163067"},{"product_id":"arbutus-x-andrachnoides","title":"Arbutus x andrachnoides","description":"\u003cp\u003eA hybrid strawberry tree, \u003cem\u003eArbutus\u003c\/em\u003e x \u003cem\u003eandrachnoides\u003c\/em\u003e crosses the strawberry tree, \u003cem\u003eArbutus unedo\u003c\/em\u003e, with the Grecian strawberry tree, \u003cem\u003eA. andrachne\u003c\/em\u003e, and takes the best of both: white, bell-shaped flowers and pink, strawberry-like fruit on a small evergreen tree, over dark green leaves an inch and a half to four inches long. The real prize comes with age, when the bark peels away to a smooth, rich red-brown that rivals any madrone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSalt tolerant and handsome year round, this hybrid came to Woodlanders by way of Brookside Gardens in Maryland, which had obtained the plant in Europe. Slow growing and long-lived, the tree makes an elegant small specimen where the flowers, fruit, and above all the cinnamon bark can be enjoyed at close range.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive the hybrid strawberry tree full sun to part shade and well-drained soil, and a spot near a path, patio, or entry where the polished red-brown trunk can be admired. Drought and salt tolerant once established, a fine evergreen for a coastal or Mediterranean-style planting in zones 7 to 9.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057811198067,"sku":"ARBU-ANDR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1111.jpg?v=1720136403"},{"product_id":"aronia-arbutifolia-brilliantissima","title":"Aronia arbutifolia 'Brilliantissima'","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAronia arbutifolia\u003c\/em\u003e has grown in the wet woods and pocosins of the eastern United States for a very long time, largely unbothered by the horticultural world's attention. 'Brilliantissima' changed that. Selected for foliage with a deeper gloss and berries of a more saturated, almost lacquered red than the straight species, this is the form that finally made gardeners look twice at a native shrub long overlooked despite centuries of quiet usefulness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe season opens in mid spring with clusters of small white flowers, delicate and lace-like, and welcome to native bees at a moment when little else blooms. By midsummer the berries swell and deepen, and by early autumn ripen to a red so intense as to look almost artificial against the leaves. The foliage turns at the same time: the fall color of 'Brilliantissima' is among the more reliable and spectacular events of the native shrub calendar, a deep, burnished crimson that holds for weeks and earns the cultivar name outright.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe berries persist well into winter, by which point the birds have usually found them; cedar waxwings in particular descend in flocks, either a delight or a caveat depending on attachment to the fruit display. Both views are fair.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAronia arbutifolia\u003c\/em\u003e tolerates wet soils, adapts to dry ones once established, and asks very little in return for a great deal of seasonal interest. Native, four-season, wildlife-supporting, and genuinely beautiful, a combination still rarer than it should be. The berries are edible, very astringent fresh but good cooked, and exceptionally high in antioxidants.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057812246643,"sku":"ARON-ARBU-BRIL-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/AroniaarbutifoliaBrilliantissima.jpg?v=1750800949"},{"product_id":"aster-laevis-bluebird","title":"Aster laevis ‘Bluebird’","description":"\u003cp\u003eSmooth aster is one of the cleanest and most dependable of the fall natives, and 'Bluebird' is among the best forms. \u003cem\u003eAster laevis\u003c\/em\u003e 'Bluebird' builds an upright, vase-shaped clump of smooth, blue-green foliage, then opens, in late summer and fall, sprays of violet-blue daisies centered in gold, a generous late feast for bees and butterflies as the season winds down.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA selection noted for sturdy, self-supporting stems and clean, mildew-resistant foliage that stays handsome where lesser asters tatter. Native to eastern North America, smooth aster thrives in full sun and well-drained soil, takes drought in stride once established, and asks very little. The smooth, almost waxy leaves are part of the appeal, cool blue-green all season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant 'Bluebird' in a sunny border, a meadow, or a native planting, where the violet-blue haze can close the gardening year alongside goldenrod, grasses, and other late bloomers. Deer tend to leave the foliage alone, and the strong stems rarely need staking. A pollinator magnet exactly when the season's nectar runs short.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057814540403,"sku":"ASTE-LAEV-BLUE-01Q","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-606.jpg?v=1720136500"},{"product_id":"aster-grandiflorus","title":"Symphyotrichum grandiflorum","description":"\u003cp\u003eA native aster with a regional accent. Most of the asters Americans plant are wide-ranging species that turn up from Maine to Texas and read essentially the same wherever they grow. Symphyotrichum grandiflorum is more particular, with a native range small and specific: the Atlantic Coastal Plain of Virginia and the Carolinas, plus the Piedmont of the Carolinas, and little more. A few hundred miles of sandy roadsides, dry pine-oak woods, abandoned fields, and forest edges from the Tidewater into the rolling country west of the fall line. For a gardener in the Carolinas or Georgia, this is one of the few asters that is genuinely here, a piece of the actual Atlantic Coastal Plain flora rather than a borrowed prairie species filling in for a missing native.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flower is the show. Heads an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half across, large for a wild aster, hence the species name grandiflorum, with twenty to thirty narrow ray florets in a deep, saturated violet-purple around a tight golden disk. The color carries enough blue to read cool and enough red to read warm, the kind of saturated violet that catches autumn light beautifully. The flowers open at a useful time, October into November, when most of the other asters have already finished and the garden is otherwise leaning toward seed heads, late grasses, and the first frost. Among native asters, grandiflorum is one of the latest to bloom and the largest-flowered, two genuine differentiators the more common species cannot match.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plants stand one to three feet tall on stiff, hairy, upright stems, with narrow, lance-shaped leaves and lower clasping foliage. Not a soft, billowy, fall-flowering aster, but an upright, structural one, more architectural than romantic. Dry, sandy soils suit the plant well, and poor conditions that defeat showier perennials are taken in stride, which is part of why grandiflorum has persisted along Coastal Plain roadsides where the native communities have largely disappeared. A long list of late-season insects works the flowers, including specialist Andrena bees that depend on Symphyotrichum and a few related genera for their pollen; without late asters, these bees lose their season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor the gardener building a late-fall pollinator garden, anyone planting the actual flora of the Carolinas rather than a generic native mix, or the late-season designer wanting a structural, drought-tough, deep-purple punctuation when most other asters are spent, grandiflorum earns a place.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057815097459,"sku":"ASTE-GRAN-01Q","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Woodlanders_aster_grandiflorus_1.jpg?v=1730230236"},{"product_id":"buddleia-alternifolia","title":"Buddleia alternifolia","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBuddleia alternifolia\u003c\/em\u003e, the fountain or alternate-leaf butterfly bush, stands apart from the usual butterfly-bush crowd. A deciduous shrub native to northwestern China, the fountain butterfly bush is the most cold-hardy of the genus, and is grown above all for a weeping form and an early-season flood of fragrant, lavender-purple bloom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn shape the shrub recalls a small weeping willow, the long, arching branches cloaked in narrow, silver-green leaves set alternately, a key difference from other butterfly bushes. In late spring and early summer the branches erupt into a waterfall of softly scented blossoms, densely packed along the previous year's wood, an elegant cascade and a magnet for butterflies and bees.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBecause the flowers come on old wood, prune right after bloom to protect the next year's display. Left unpruned, the fountain butterfly bush settles into a naturally flowing eight-to-fifteen-foot fountain, a striking specimen for a cottage garden, an informal border, or a naturalistic planting. Tough and drought-tolerant once established, and reliably hardier than the modern butterfly-bush hybrids.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057818734707,"sku":"BUDD-ALTE-01G","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/0B9E2FF4-06DE-4F18-A79F-BF748D95DA4C.jpg?v=1772275407"},{"product_id":"carpinus-caroliniana","title":"Carpinus caroliniana","description":"\u003cp\u003eCarpinus caroliniana is a native tree that hides its best feature in plain sight, a smooth, gray, sinewy bark that ripples over the trunk like the muscles of a flexed arm, giving the common names musclewood and ironwood. This small, slow, dense understory tree of eastern North America carries fine, birch-like leaves and a rounded, layered crown. The wood beneath that muscled bark is famously hard and heavy, the reason ironwood stuck as a name.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild, American hornbeam grows along stream banks, floodplains, and moist woods, deep in the shade of taller trees, and belongs to the birch family alongside the hop hornbeams, hazels, and alders. The names tangle: musclewood, ironwood, blue beech, and water beech all point to this one tree, the last two for the smooth gray bark that recalls a beech. Spring brings inconspicuous green catkins, followed by small nutlets slung in leafy, hop-like clusters that feed birds and small mammals into fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere many small trees demand sun, hornbeam thrives in shade to full sun, asking mainly for good, moist soil, and rewards the patient gardener with a clean, refined presence and fall color that runs from yellow through orange to red. The hard wood that earned the ironwood name once went into tool handles, mallets, and ox yokes, taking a horn-like polish. Slow and long-lived, this is a tree that settles in and holds its form for decades.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUse Carpinus caroliniana as a lawn or specimen tree, an understory planting beneath larger trees, or a small tree for a rain garden or damp corner where the roots run cool and moist. The dense, twiggy frame takes shearing well and lends itself to hedges and formal training, and the muscled bark carries the winter scene once the leaves have fallen. For a tough, native, shade-tolerant small tree, few match the quiet appeal of musclewood.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057827090547,"sku":"CARP-CARO-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/CarpinuscarolinianaMBG.jpg?v=1784300313"},{"product_id":"cercis-canadensis","title":"Cercis canadensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew native trees announce spring like Cercis canadensis, the eastern redbud, whose bare branches flush rosy pink and magenta weeks before the dogwoods open. The small pea-like flowers cluster not just along the twigs but straight from the older branches and even the trunk, a charming trick called cauliflory, and give way to broad, heart-shaped leaves. A small, graceful understory tree of eastern and central North America, redbud belongs in the legume family, kin to peas and beans.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThose early flowers do real work, offering some of the season's first nectar and pollen to native bees, among them the specialist southeastern blueberry bee and the bumblebees. The blossoms are edible too, tart and high in vitamin C, long scattered raw over salads, folded into breads and pancakes, pickled, or fried. For a few weeks each spring the whole small tree seems dipped in pink, cheerful out of all proportion to the modest size.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter the flowers come the leaves, rounded valentines that hold clean green through summer and turn soft yellow in fall, followed by flat, bean-like pods that rattle on the branches into winter. The genus name comes from the Greek kerkis, a weaver's shuttle, for the shape of those pods. Redbud is a legume without the nitrogen-fixing habit of many in the family, grown instead for beauty, for pollinators, and for the sheer welcome of the bloom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive Cercis canadensis full sun to part shade and any decent, well-drained soil, and site the tree where the spring show can be seen, at a woodland edge, along a drive, or against a darker evergreen backdrop that sets off the pink. Adaptable, quick to bloom while young, and beloved by early bees, redbud earns a place as a specimen, in a native or pollinator planting, or naturalized at the edge of the woods. This is one of the most cheerful of all the small native trees.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057830531187,"sku":"CERC-CANA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1877.jpg?v=1720137133"},{"product_id":"cestrum-nocturnum","title":"Cestrum nocturnum","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew plants announce themselves the way \u003cem\u003eCestrum nocturnum\u003c\/em\u003e does, and never by daylight. Through the afternoon the shrub keeps to a quiet, almost ordinary green, the slender branches arching and half-climbing, the small tubular flowers furled and unremarkable. Then dusk arrives, the cream-green trumpets open, and the night-blooming jasmine releases a perfume so far-reaching that it carries across a whole garden on still, warm air.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA member of the nightshade family native to the tropical Americas, from Mexico and Central America through the Caribbean and into northern South America, this shrub has traveled with gardeners into every warm corner of the world, sometimes a little too successfully; in parts of the tropics the plant has naturalized and turned weedy. Fragrance accounts for the wandering. Across cultures the leaves have also found a place in folk practice: crushed for skin complaints in southern India, brewed against fevers in the Caribbean, the aromatic oil burned or rubbed to turn away mosquitoes in several African countries. The whole plant is toxic if eaten, the small white berries most of all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, treat the night-blooming jasmine as a creature of the evening and plant accordingly. Site the shrub where people gather after dark, beside a patio, a doorway, or an open window, so the scent can do the work. In zone 8 the tops die to the ground; a Woodlanders trick is to mound about ten inches of coarse sand over the cut stubs after frost, then mulch with pine straw, lifting the covering as the weather warms so new shoots can rise. Given rich soil and steady water, the plant returns quickly and flowers through the heat of summer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057830793331,"sku":"CEST-NOCT-01G","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-877.jpg?v=1720137142"},{"product_id":"cistus-x-corbariensis-c-hybridus","title":"Cistus x corbariensis (C. hybridus)","description":"\u003cp\u003eCistus x corbariensis is a white rockrose, one of the toughest and most charming of the Mediterranean sun shrubs, covered through late spring and early summer in flowers like small single roses. Each bloom is pure white with a gold eye, the petals crinkled like tissue paper, opening from buds tinged red and lasting a single day before the next takes over. Despite the name, a rockrose is no relation to the true roses, belonging instead to the Cistaceae, the rockrose family of the dry Mediterranean hills.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis particular rockrose is a natural-looking hybrid of two Mediterranean species, Cistus populifolius and Cistus salviifolius, named for the Corbieres hills of southern France. The low, mounding shrub holds small, wavy-edged, gray-green evergreen leaves the year round, and the whole plant has the lean, sun-loving constitution of the Mediterranean, thriving on heat, drought, and poor, stony ground. Bees work the fleeting flowers through the long bloom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRockrose asks for two things above all, full sun and sharp drainage, and repays them with months of bloom on almost no water. What the plant will not forgive is a wet winter or rich, heavy soil, so in the humid Southeast the rockrose does best on a raised bed, a slope, or gritty, fast-draining ground where the roots stay dry in the cold months. One of the hardiest of the rockroses, this hybrid holds through the low twenties, into the warmer parts of zone 7.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse Cistus x corbariensis in a Mediterranean, gravel, or coastal garden, on a hot dry bank, or along a sunny, well-drained border where little else will bloom so freely on so little care. Drought tolerant, salt tolerant, and left alone by deer, the shrub earns a place wherever summer is hot and water is scarce. Trim lightly after flowering to keep the mound neat, but never cut back hard into old, bare wood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAdditional photos courtesy of Oregon State University\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057834987635,"sku":"CIST-CORB-C-HYBR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/CistusxcorbariensisOSU.jpg?v=1784302900"},{"product_id":"clinopodium-coccineum","title":"Clinopodium coccineum","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eClinopodium coccineum\u003c\/em\u003e is a small, aromatic, semi-evergreen subshrub of the mint family, native to the deep, well-drained sands of the southeastern coastal plain, from Mississippi and Georgia down into Florida. The loose, open frame and small, spicy-scented leaves would earn a quiet place on their own, but the flowers are the event: showy scarlet tubes carried over a long summer season, held out like little trumpets that hummingbirds cannot resist.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eScarlet calamint belongs to a genus of old-world and new-world herbs long valued for aromatic, savory foliage, and the crushed leaves of this southern native release the same clean, spicy scent that keeps deer and other browsers at a polite distance. The plant is a creature of sandhills and sunny sandy flatwoods, at home where sharp drainage and lean soil defeat softer things.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive scarlet calamint full sun and fast-draining, sandy soil, and site the shrub where the summer-long scarlet show and the hummingbird traffic can be watched up close: a hot bank, a gravel or xeric border, a rock garden, or the front of a sunny native bed. Pair with other sun-and-drought lovers such as salvias and grasses, and let the aromatic foliage line a path where brushing past releases the scent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhoto credit to Jonas Meyer.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/blogs\/news\/clinopodium-the-soft-power-of-the-mint-family\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eLearn more about the Clinopodium genus with our guide.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057845145715,"sku":"CLIN-COCC-01G","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/5C746564-9851-451B-A8A2-96F63DB56889.jpg?v=1782135232"},{"product_id":"conradina-verticillata","title":"Conradina verticillata","description":"\u003cp\u003eA small shrub of the Cumberland Plateau, found only on the flood-scoured cobble and sand bars of three river systems in eastern Tennessee and a sliver of Kentucky: the Big South Fork of the Cumberland, the Caney Fork, and the Obed. The rest of the \u003cem\u003eConradina\u003c\/em\u003e clan keeps to the sand scrub of Florida and the Gulf Coast of Alabama, sun-baked and semitropical. This species took a different path, north into the cooler uplands, and the cold-hardiness that came with the move is the gift to gardens farther north.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCumberland rosemary lives by disturbance. The plants grow on bars scoured by spring floods and baked dry by August, and they need that rhythm to survive. Flooding strips out the taller competition that would otherwise shade them off the bar; the drought that follows is the condition their roots are tuned to. Extended floods snap off stem fragments and carry them downstream, where they root in fresh gravel and start new colonies. This is a plant that requires the river to behave like a river. Dam the system, stabilize the banks, and the species quietly disappears.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere are other oddnesses. Cumberland rosemary is the only triploid in the genus, which makes seed production unreliable and most reproduction clonal, so what looks like a colony of separate plants is often a single sprawling individual rooting at the nodes. The genus honors Solomon White Conrad, an eighteenth-century Philadelphia botanist and Quaker schoolmaster whose name attached to this small clan of southeastern mints almost by accident. The leaves, crushed, smell so much like culinary rosemary that they have served as a kitchen substitute, though we would rather you grew the plant than ate it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLavender-pink flowers with darker throat spotting come in May and June, two-lipped and small but freely produced along the trailing stems. The low evergreen mat runs six to twelve inches high and spreads to two or three feet, the foliage holding through winter with a faint bronze cast in cold. Excellent in a rock garden, tumbling over a stone wall, or anywhere the conditions of the native cobble bars can be approximated.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFederally listed as threatened since 1991, which means this plant cannot be sold across state lines. South Carolina and in-person purchase only.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhotos courtesy of Sally and Andy Wasowski.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/blogs\/the-node\/an-exploration-of-the-conradina-genus\"\u003eLearn more about the Conradina genus here\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057846161523,"sku":"CONR-VERT-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Conradina_verticilla_l7Q3C95pblex.jpg?v=1750447856"},{"product_id":"conradina-canescens","title":"Conradina canescens","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe conradinas are dense, aromatic, low shrubs of the mint family, dressed in small, usually needle-like green or gray leaves and hung with little pale purple flowers. Six or seven species grow wild in the southern United States, most of them in Florida on sand or very sandy soil, and all but this one (and one possibly new species) are federally listed as threatened or endangered. \u003cem\u003eConradina canescens\u003c\/em\u003e is the common, widespread member of the clan, a somewhat variable plant of the Gulf Coast dunes of northwest Florida and adjacent Alabama.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGray false rosemary makes a fine garden plant in sunny, sandy, well-drained places with little competition, and would grace an herb garden handsomely, though the leaves are not known to carry any culinary or medicinal value. Drought tolerant once established, the shrub is a natural for xeriscapes and other low-water plantings, and the aromatic foliage releases a clean, resinous scent when brushed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite gray false rosemary where the fine gray foliage and pale flowers can be read up close: a rock or gravel garden, a hot sunny bank, a sandy coastal bed, or the front of a dry border, among other sun-and-drought lovers that will not crowd the low mound. Bees and butterflies work the flowers steadily, and deer pass the aromatic leaves by.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/blogs\/the-node\/an-exploration-of-the-conradina-genus\"\u003eLearn more about the Conradina genus here\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhoto courtesy of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.wildflower.org\/gallery\/result.php?id_image=45869\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eAlan Cressler\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057846227059,"sku":"CONR-CANE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IMG-7513.heic?v=1771508232"},{"product_id":"dicliptera-suberecta","title":"Dicliptera suberecta","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDicliptera suberecta\u003c\/em\u003e is a member of the acanthus family, Acanthaceae, and hails from the grasslands of Uruguay and Argentina, a heritage that shows in a love of heat, sun, and lean soil. Gardeners know the plant by two names that between them tell the whole story: Uruguayan firecracker plant, for the volley of tubular blooms, and hummingbird plant, for the traffic those blooms draw.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe foliage charms first. Soft, velvety, and washed a cool bluish-grey, the leaves and stems carry a fine down that catches the light and reads almost silver in a sunny border. From midsummer into fall the mound erupts in clusters of narrow, tubular flowers in warm coral and brick-red, held at the branch tips like small fireworks caught mid-burst. Each bloom is shaped precisely for a hummingbird's bill, and the plant earns the common name daily through the hottest months.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor all the delicacy of the coloring, this is a tough, forgiving perennial subshrub. Heat, humidity, and drought scarcely trouble a settled plant, and the silvery leaves stay handsome even between flushes of bloom. In the cooler end of the range the top growth dies back and returns from the base in spring, so a winter mulch and a little patience are all the plant asks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, use \u003cem\u003eDicliptera suberecta\u003c\/em\u003e at the front of a sunny, well-drained border, spilling over a wall or path edge, or in a container or hanging basket where the coral flowers can dangle at eye level. The soft grey mound cools hotter neighbors and pairs easily with salvias, agastache, and ornamental grasses in a pollinator or cottage planting. Set the plant where the hummingbirds can be watched from a window, and expect an audience all summer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057860284531,"sku":"DICL-SUBE-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/70B410FC-39D9-466B-9C44-A717108AFEF2.jpg?v=1783640979"},{"product_id":"dirca-palustris","title":"Dirca palustris","description":"\u003cp\u003eDirca palustris, the leatherwood, is a quiet native shrub with a hidden trick: branches so supple and tough they can be bent, twisted, even tied in a knot without snapping. That remarkable pliability, born of unusually soft, low-lignin wood, gave rise to the names leatherwood and ropebark, and made the bark a favorite of Native peoples for cordage. A slow, rounded, understory shrub of rich eastern woodlands, leatherwood is seldom offered and quietly prized by those who know it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn earliest spring, before the leaves and before almost anything else in the woods, small pale-yellow bells dangle from the bare, jointed twigs, an early gift of nectar to the first bees. Leatherwood belongs to the Daphne family, and shares the family's beauty and its bite, for every part is acrid and toxic, and the bark can irritate skin. The light green leaves follow, turning a clean, clear yellow in fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild this shrub grows in the shade of the eastern hardwood forests, in rich, moist, near-neutral soils, scattered from Canada to the Gulf but common nowhere. The flexible branches once served for rope, bowstrings, baskets, and fishing lines, the practical origin of every one of leatherwood's country names. That same strength and the early bloom make the plant as interesting to the curious gardener as it once was useful to the woodsman.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive Dirca palustris the conditions of a native woodland, part to full shade and rich, moist, well-drained soil, and shelter from hot afternoon sun that can scorch the leaves. A choice, uncommon shrub for a shade or woodland garden, leatherwood offers early flowers, clean yellow fall color, and a distinctive, jointed branch structure the year round. For the collector of native shrubs, this is a genuine and rarely seen prize.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057860776051,"sku":"DIRC-PALU-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Dircapalustris.jpg?v=1784306936"},{"product_id":"dyschoriste-oblongifolia","title":"Dyschoriste oblongifolia","description":"\u003cp\u003eOblongleaf twinflower, \u003cem\u003eDyschoriste oblongifolia\u003c\/em\u003e, is a low, spreading wildflower of the American Southeast, a member of the acanthus family that carpets the dry pine flatwoods, sandhills, and open savannas of Florida and neighboring states. The common name comes from the habit of carrying the small, funnel-shaped flowers in pairs, twinned in the leaf axils along low stems, while the botanical epithet \u003cem\u003eoblongifolia\u003c\/em\u003e simply describes the neat, oblong leaves. An older regional name is snakeherb, a tag shared across the genus \u003cem\u003eDyschoriste\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom late spring into early winter the plant opens inch-wide blooms of soft blue to lavender-purple, each a five-lobed funnel veined in a deeper tone at the throat. Modest one at a time, they add up to a long, quiet season of color across the mat. For native-garden makers the real value runs deeper than looks: oblongleaf twinflower is a documented larval host for the common buckeye butterfly, and the flowers draw bees and a range of butterflies through the warm months, so a planting works as quietly for wildlife as for the eye.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStanding only six to eight inches tall and spreading slowly into a dense, low groundcover, the plant fills the ground layer where taller things would overwhelm. Set oblongleaf twinflower between stepping stones, along a path edge, at the front of a native bed, or as a tidy understory beneath pines and open-canopy shrubs. The slow, clumping spread stays where wanted rather than running, which makes the plant an easy neighbor in mixed native plantings and a natural fit for water-wise, low-input gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTrue to the dry, sunny flatwoods of the plant's origin, oblongleaf twinflower wants full sun to light shade and sharp, sandy drainage, and shrugs off heat and short droughts once the roots take hold. Hardy through roughly USDA zones 7 to 10 and semi-evergreen in the warmer end of that range, the plant returns dependably year after year. Woodlanders grew this stock from wild Florida material, so gardeners in the Southeast get a genuinely local native, at home in the very soils and seasons the species evolved to meet.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057863594099,"sku":"DYSC-OBLO-01Q","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-634.jpg?v=1720137962"},{"product_id":"kalmia-latifolia-x-hirsuta","title":"Kalmia latifolia x hirsuta","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis seemingly unlikely hybrid crosses the familiar mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) with the diminutive, far less known sandhill laurel (Kalmia hirsuta) of the Deep South, two species that could hardly look more different. The cross was probably first made by the late, great Alabama nurseryman Tom Dodd, Jr., and further investigated by the Connecticut Kalmia expert Dr. Richard Jaynes, whose lifetime of work did more than anyone's to bring the genus into gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe genus Kalmia was named by Linnaeus for his student Pehr Kalm, the naturalist who explored eastern North America in the 1740s. This hybrid sits neatly between the parents in both size and hardiness, staying a compact three to four feet high and wide, and bears the typical pink flower clusters of a mountain laurel. Each cup-shaped bloom carries the family's signature mechanism, ten stamens held under spring tension in pockets of the corolla, ready to snap forward and dust a visiting bee with pollen. The sandhill laurel parent lends heat tolerance and a smaller frame, making this an intriguing laurel for gardeners in the warmer Southeast.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMountain laurels carry a long human history under the common name spoonwood, from the hard, close-grained wood that Indigenous peoples of the East carved into spoons and small utensils. That heritage comes with a firm caution. Every green part of a Kalmia, along with the pollen and any honey made from the flowers, contains grayanotoxins and is poisonous to livestock, wildlife, and people. This hybrid is grown as an ornamental and pollinator plant, never a medicinal or edible one, and the foliage is best kept away from grazing animals and curious mouths.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, this compact laurel is an attractive and unusual choice for a spot with well-drained acid soil, semi-shade, and dependable moisture. The modest size suits a woodland border, a foundation planting, or a collector's corner among rhododendrons, blueberries, inkberry, and native ferns. Plant high rather than deep, mulch with pine straw to keep the roots cool and sour, and let the toxic evergreen foliage serve as quiet deer resistance through the year.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057906225267,"sku":"KALM-LATI-X-HIRS-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1818.jpg?v=1720139197"},{"product_id":"osteomeles-schweriniae","title":"Osteomeles schweriniae","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eOsteomeles schweriniae\u003c\/em\u003e, the bone apple, is a refined evergreen shrub in the rose family, close kin to hawthorn, cotoneaster, and photinia, and a botanical rarity seldom seen in American gardens. The genus name joins the Greek \u003cem\u003eosteon\u003c\/em\u003e, bone, and \u003cem\u003emelon\u003c\/em\u003e, apple, a nod to the stony hardness of the little fruits, while the species epithet honors the German dendrologist Count Fritz von Schwerin. Native to the dry valleys and open slopes of Yunnan and western Sichuan in southwestern China, the shrub carries very small, ferny, pinnate leaves along dense, wiry, arching stems, giving a fine texture unusual among broadleaf evergreens.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn late spring and summer the branches carry loose clusters of small white flowers, five-petaled and hawthorn-like, that draw bees and other pollinators. These give way to small, round pomes, technically miniature apples, that ripen from white through blue-black. The fruits are sweet and edible, eaten raw off the branch or cooked down into jellies and jams, and the same hard little pomes that inspired the name bone apple hold on the plant well into the cooler months.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fine foliage, dense twiggy frame, and tiny evergreen leaves make the bone apple a natural for close-range display. Grow the shrub as a low informal hedge, a specimen in a gravel or dry garden, or the front of a sunny border, and site where the ferny texture and pale flowers can be read up close, near a path, a patio, or a low wall. The species is also a long-favored subject for bonsai, since the miniature leaves and gnarled, arching stems reduce beautifully under training.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDrought tolerant once established and content on lean, sharply drained ground, the bone apple asks for full sun to part shade and little else. Pair the shrub with rosemary, lavender, small ornamental grasses, and other sun-and-drought lovers, and keep richer, wetter soil well away. At the cold edge of the range a large container makes the plant easy to shelter through hard freezes. A collector's shrub that earns a place for texture, fruit, and the quiet pleasure of growing something few gardeners know.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057933717619,"sku":"OSTE-SCHW-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/840EBE13-B527-4135-9157-EA0D074C3489.jpg?v=1771964563"},{"product_id":"quercus-prinoides","title":"Quercus prinoides","description":"\u003cp\u003eDwarf chinquapin oak is the oak for gardeners in a hurry, a small, shrubby white oak that starts bearing sweet acorns while still only a few feet tall. Where most oaks make you wait a generation, this one fruits at three to five years old and crops nearly every year after, a rare and useful trick. The plant grows as a rhizomatous, colony-forming shrub or small tree of ten to twenty feet, clothed in glossy, chestnut-like leaves with wavy, blunt teeth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe acorns are the point, and they are the good kind. As a member of the white oak group, dwarf chinquapin oak bears sweet, low-tannin acorns that ripen in a single season, palatable to people with little or no leaching and relished by nearly everything with fur or feathers: deer, turkey, quail, grouse, squirrels, and jays. The epithet prinoides means resembling Prinus, the old name for the chestnut oak, for the chestnut-like toothing of the leaves. Few native plants pack so much wildlife value into so small a package.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is a tough, undemanding native of dry, sterile, sunny ground, glades and barrens and rocky slopes from the Midwest to the eastern Piedmont, asking for the same in the garden: full sun and lean, well-drained, even rocky or slightly limy soil. Drought and heat are no trouble, and the rhizomatous habit slowly builds a low thicket that can be left to spread or kept in bounds. Hardy through USDA zones 5 to 8, the leaves color bronze, gold, and copper-red in fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor a smaller property, an edible landscape, or a wildlife planting, dwarf chinquapin oak is one of the most rewarding oaks going, offering an oak's ecology and a sweet, early acorn crop at shrub scale. Naturalize the plant on a dry sunny bank, plant a small grove for the wildlife, or grow one as a low specimen, and enjoy an oak that gives back within a few short years rather than a few long decades.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057958457459,"sku":"QUER-PRIN-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/QuercusprinoidesArnoldArboretum.jpg?v=1784337875"},{"product_id":"rhododendron-atlanticum-x-austrinum-pale-yellow","title":"Rhododendron atlanticum x austrinum (Pale Yellow)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis fragrant deciduous azalea is a garden cross between two native species, the low, glaucous-leaved coast azalea, \u003cem\u003eRhododendron atlanticum\u003c\/em\u003e, and the golden Florida azalea, \u003cem\u003eRhododendron austrinum\u003c\/em\u003e. From the first parent the hybrid inherits sweet fragrance and cool foliage; from the second, warmth of color and vigor. The result, selected here for pale, clear yellow flowers, blends the best of both, and where the ranges of the two species meet along the Southern coastal plain, such crosses occasionally arise in the wild as well.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn April, early in the native-azalea season, the shrub opens fragrant clusters of soft, clear yellow flowers, tubular and long-stamened in the honeysuckle manner of the wild azaleas. The color is gentler than the fiery orange-golds of many austrinum selections, a pale, buttery yellow that reads softly in dappled light and carries a sweet perfume through the spring garden. The genus name Rhododendron means rose tree in Greek, while azalea derives from azaleos, meaning dry, an old reference to the well-drained woodland these shrubs prefer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike both parents, the hybrid belongs to the group of Southern native azaleas long grown as bush honeysuckles for scent and spring color. And like all of them, the shrub is for the eye and the nose rather than the table: every Rhododendron carries grayanotoxins in leaf and nectar, and none should be eaten. The flowers instead feed the early pollinators, drawing butterflies, native bees, and returning hummingbirds to the season's first nectar.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMore compact than a full-sized austrinum, reaching perhaps six to seven feet with a balanced, informal frame, this pale yellow azalea suits a woodland border, a lightly shaded bed, or a naturalistic planting where soft color and fragrance matter more than bold contrast. Give filtered sun or morning light with afternoon shade, and a moist, acidic, well-drained soil enriched with pine bark or leaf mold. Mulch the shallow roots, and combine the shrub with ferns, native phlox, and other native azaleas timed to open in sequence, so the soft yellow of April gives way to the whites and oranges that follow.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057970450547,"sku":"RHOD-ATLA-X-AUST-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-493.jpg?v=1720140731"},{"product_id":"rhododendron-austrinum-harrisons-red","title":"Rhododendron austrinum 'Harrison's Red'","description":"The Florida Azalea is a large growing deciduous azalea. The fragrant flowers very early and typically yellow. The flowers of this clone are a \u003cstrong\u003eunique coral color\u003c\/strong\u003e. This selection was found some years ago and introduced by Falling Waters Nursery in Chipley, Florida. Florida Azalea blooms here in South Carolina in late March-early April and is one of the best native azaleas for the Deep South. It grows well with irrigation under tall pines where soil is sandy, acidic, and well-drained. It is native to Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama.","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057972777075,"sku":"RHOD-AUST-HARR-RED-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-495.jpg?v=1720140772"},{"product_id":"rhododendron-x-kosterana-x-prinophyllum","title":"Rhododendron x kosterana x prinophyllum","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis hardy hybrid azalea is a piece of Woodlanders history, a deliberate cross made by the nursery's late founder, Robert Mackintosh. Mackintosh crossed the native roseshell azalea, Rhododendron prinophyllum, with the old hybrid group known as R. x kosterana, or mollis azalea, and the result is an upright, large-flowered deciduous shrub carrying bold orange trusses each marked with a splash of yellow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe parentage is worth telling in full, because the lineage spans three continents. The roseshell azalea is one of the most northerly and most fragrant of the American natives, a rosy-pink shrub of New England and the higher Appalachians famous for a strong cinnamon-and-clove scent. The mollis side reaches farther afield: R. x kosterana is itself a cross of the Japanese azalea, Rhododendron japonicum, with the Chinese Rhododendron molle, a parentage that lends the hot orange and yellow coloring and the large flower size. Blending a hardy, fragrant American parent with the vivid color of the Asian mollis azaleas is exactly the kind of cross a plantsman makes to get the best of both.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers open in spring on an upright frame of four to eight feet, large and showy, glowing orange with a gold flare at the throat, and set off against fresh green deciduous leaves. Early bees and butterflies work the trusses. As with every azalea, the whole plant carries grayanotoxins and is poisonous if eaten, so the shrub is one to grow for the spring show and keep clear of children and livestock.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow the hybrid as other native and deciduous azaleas are grown: in the high, filtered shade of tall pines, at a woodland edge, or in a mixed border, where the vivid spring color can carry across the garden. Give cool, moist, acidic, well-drained soil, mulch the shallow roots with pine straw, and pair with fragrant pink and white native azaleas so the hot orange has something cool to play against. A hardy, characterful cross with a genuine Woodlanders story behind the plant.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057974579315,"sku":"RHOD-KOST-PRIN-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1329.jpg?v=1720140814"},{"product_id":"rhododendron-alabamense-frosty","title":"Rhododendron alabamense 'Frosty'","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRhododendron alabamense\u003c\/em\u003e, the Alabama azalea, is one of the loveliest and, by wide agreement, one of the most powerfully fragrant of all the wild deciduous azaleas of the Southeast. The species grows in hardwood forests and along dry slopes and ridges from north-central Alabama east through western Georgia and into South Carolina, where in mid spring the woods fill with the scent of lemon. Clusters of six to ten white, funnel-shaped flowers, each marked with a clear yellow blotch and finished with long, arching stamens, open just before or alongside the emerging leaves. The genus name Rhododendron means rose tree in Greek, while azalea derives from azaleos, meaning dry, a nod to the well-drained upland ground these shrubs favor.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Frosty' is a named form selected years ago in southwest Georgia by Terry Greer, whose own name is sometimes attached to the plant. Cuttings came to us from our friend and fellow plant nut Dean Jolly. The selection carries the typical white, yellow-blotched, lemon-scented flowers of the species, but earns the name 'Frosty' for handsome, somewhat glaucous foliage, that cool blue-gray cast frosted over the summer leaves. Low and rounded, usually under six feet and inclined to sucker gently into a colony, the shrub keeps a tidy presence long after the flowers have passed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe wild azaleas of the Southern woods have been admired for generations as bush honeysuckles, prized for perfume and spring color rather than for any use in the kitchen or the still-room. That distinction is worth remembering: like all Rhododendron, the leaves and nectar of 'Frosty' hold grayanotoxins and are not to be eaten by people or animals. The flowers, however, are a banquet for others, drawing in early butterflies, native bees, and the season's first hummingbirds to the sweetly scented trusses.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden 'Frosty' asks for the conditions of a Southern woodland edge: dappled light or morning sun with afternoon shade, and a moist but sharply drained, acidic soil laced with pine bark or leaf mold. Set the shrub where the lemon fragrance can be caught on a spring evening, near a path, a porch, or a garden bench, and let the glaucous foliage cool the greens around it through summer. The suckering habit suits a naturalistic planting among ferns, foamflower, and native phlox, or a loose drift of mixed native azaleas that stretch the bloom season from first warmth into early summer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057974743155,"sku":"RHOD-ALAB-FROS-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2071.jpg?v=1720140819"},{"product_id":"rhododendron-colemanii","title":"Rhododendron colemanii","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRhododendron colemanii\u003c\/em\u003e, the Red Hills azalea, is one of the most recently recognized of all the native deciduous azaleas, first described as a distinct species only in 2008. For years the plant was folded in with the Alabama azalea, \u003cem\u003eRhododendron alabamense\u003c\/em\u003e, which blooms earlier and holds consistently white, yellow-blotched flowers; the Red Hills azalea, by contrast, flowers later and in a wider range of color. The species takes its home ground from the Red Hills country of the inner coastal plain, a narrow range across southwest Georgia and southern Alabama.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBlooming in mid to late May, well after most native azaleas have finished, the Red Hills azalea opens fragrant, tubular flowers that may echo the white-and-yellow of the Alabama azalea or run to white, pink, or soft yellow, with or without a blotch, so that no two plants are quite alike. The long-stamened blooms carry the sweet honeysuckle scent for which the wild azaleas are loved, and the late timing extends the native-azalea season into early summer. Green summer leaves close the year in yellow and bronze.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRestricted in the wild and still little known in cultivation, the Red Hills azalea is a genuine rarity, a plant that only recently stepped out of the shadow of a better-known cousin. Like all the Southern wild azaleas, the shrub is grown for fragrance and flower rather than the table: every Rhododendron carries grayanotoxins in leaf and nectar and should not be eaten by people or pets. The late, nectar-rich flowers feed bees and butterflies at a season when little else in the shade garden is in bloom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA tall, multi-stemmed shrub reaching ten to twelve feet in time, the Red Hills azalea belongs at the woodland edge, along a shaded creek, or in a naturalistic native planting that mirrors the wild home on slopes and stream banks. Give sandy, acidic, well-drained soil, filtered light or morning sun with afternoon shade, and steady moisture without soggy ground. Set the shrub where the late fragrance can be caught, and pair with ferns, native phlox, and earlier-blooming azaleas so the season runs from first warmth into summer. Additional photos courtesy of Ron Miller.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057975693427,"sku":"RHOD-COLE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2138.jpg?v=1720140844"},{"product_id":"vaccinium-sempervirens","title":"Vaccinium sempervirens","description":"\u003cp\u003eVaccinium sempervirens is one of the rarest plants in this catalog, an evergreen blueberry known in the wild from a single sandy corner of Lexington County, in the Sandhills of South Carolina. A true local endemic, the plant grows along Atlantic white cedar bogs and seepage slopes where the water table sits high and the sand stays acid, and to grow one is to hold a small piece of a landscape almost nobody has seen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant came to botanical attention in 1980, when the botanists D. A. Rayner and J. Henderson described it as a distinct species and gave it the name that honors the first of them, Rayner's blueberry. Later taxonomists, W. B. Kirkman and J. Ballington among them, judged the plant a close cousin of the creeping blueberry rather than a species apart, and reduced it to Vaccinium crassifolium subspecies sempervirens, a reflection of both the kinship and the geographic isolation that set the plant on its own path.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere the creeping blueberry runs flat along the ground, Rayner's blueberry stands more erect and arching, and carries noticeably larger, glossier, evergreen leaves. In the garden the plant takes the form of a graceful low shrub, trailing or upright to about two feet, hung in spring with the small white bells of the blueberries and, later, with small dark fruit. The evergreen foliage holds year-round interest that few native blueberries can match.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive Rayner's blueberry the moist, acid, sandy, well-drained ground of the wild home, where water moves through but never stands, in full sun to part shade. Use the plant in a native or Piedmont-restoration planting, a collector's bed of southeastern rarities, or a naturalistic border where a storied evergreen groundcover is wanted. For the gardener drawn to the poetry of place, few plants carry so much history in so quiet a form, and every plant grown helps hold a vanishing South Carolina endemic in cultivation. Photos courtesy of Keith Bradley and Michael Kunz.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42058007085171,"sku":"VACC-SEMP-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/VacciniumsempervirensKeithBradleyWoodlanders1_2862bf31-204c-4c98-a60d-b2b4dd29a7dc.jpg?v=1751556492"},{"product_id":"vaccinium-arboreum","title":"Vaccinium arboreum","description":"\u003cp\u003eVaccinium arboreum, the sparkleberry, is the giant of the blueberry clan, a large shrub or small tree native across the southeastern and south-central United States, from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas. The species name arboreum means tree-like, and an old specimen earns it, rising to twenty or twenty-five feet on a gnarled, contorted frame. The folk names sparkleberry and farkleberry both nod to the small, glossy, glinting black fruits, and the plant is sometimes called tree huckleberry or winter huckleberry for the leaves that linger late.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSmall, glossy, leathery leaves give the sparkleberry a fine, refined texture, coloring red and purple in autumn and holding evergreen in the warm South while dropping farther north. The real treasure, though, is the bark: smooth and exfoliating in cinnamon, brown, and orange, wrapped around branches that twist and lean with age into a living sculpture. A large old sparkleberry, thoughtfully limbed up, has the quiet drama of a well-grown crape myrtle or stewartia, and rewards artistic pruning as few native shrubs do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn spring the branches hang with small, fragrant, white, bell-shaped flowers, urn-mouthed like all the blueberries and busy with early bees, followed by small black berries. This is a true Vaccinium, but the fruit is dry and hard rather than sweet, prized by birds and wildlife rather than people. Where the berry did enter human use, it was as folk medicine: an astringent decoction of the leaves or bark was taken for sore throats and loose bowels, and the juice for stubborn cases of dysentery, a use rooted in the plant's high tannin content.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive the sparkleberry a sunny to lightly shaded spot in well-drained, sandy, acid soil, where the plant shrugs off heat and drought once settled, and let a specimen develop as a lawn accent, a woodland-edge small tree, or the sculptural anchor of a native planting. Nurseries rarely offer the plant, though the species is native and widespread across the southern states, and gardeners increasingly value the sparkleberry as a tough, higher-pH-tolerant rootstock for cultivated blueberries. Additional photos courtesy of Alan Cressler and Sandy and Andy Wasowski.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42058007478387,"sku":"VACC-ARBO-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Vacciniumarboreum-A_C_IMG2662.jpg?v=1744210561"},{"product_id":"vaccinium-crassifolium-wells-delight","title":"Vaccinium crassifolium 'Well's Delight'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe creeping blueberry is the ground-hugging cousin of the fruiting kinds, a low, evergreen, native groundcover of the Carolina coastal plain that trades height for reach. 'Well's Delight' is a North Carolina State University selection from the southeastern corner of that state, named for the late Dr. B.W. Wells, the pioneering North Carolina ecologist, and set apart by small, shiny leaves even finer than the usual for the species. The botanical name crassifolium means thick-leaved, for the firm little evergreen leaves that line the trailing stems.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRather than a fruit crop, this is a plant grown for cover and texture: a dense, glossy, dark green mat that turns bronze and burgundy through winter cold. Small, white to pink, bell-shaped flowers stud the mat in spring, feeding early bees, and are followed by small dark blue berries that the birds take, edible enough for a passing nibble though never the harvest of a true blueberry bush.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild, creeping blueberry runs along the moist, sandy, acid ground of the Carolina coastal plain, where the water table sits high or a slow seepage keeps the soil damp, though the roots never sit in flood. That preference makes the plant a natural evergreen groundcover for a sandy bank, the front of an acid border, a pond-edge slope, or a native and pollinator planting, knitting slowly into a fine, weed-smothering carpet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive 'Well's Delight' full sun to light shade and the moist, sandy, acid soil the plant favors, and the mat fills in steadily with almost no care. Pair the groundcover with blueberries, pieris, native azaleas, and other acid-loving companions, and let a drift carry the ground where turf or a coarser cover would look heavy. A quiet, refined native that does a great deal of work for a plant so close to the soil.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42058007576691,"sku":"VACC-CRAS-WELL-DELI-01G","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-543.jpg?v=1720141582"},{"product_id":"viburnum-acerifolium","title":"Viburnum acerifolium","description":"\u003cp\u003eMapleleaf viburnum does what almost no other native shrub will do: thrive in dry shade. Most of the eastern American natives that gardeners reach for, serviceberry, red buckeye, sweetshrub, oakleaf hydrangea, want steady moisture and at least a few hours of sun. Viburnum acerifolium is the one that walks into the dry, root-tangled, low-light pocket beneath an established oak or beech and simply gets on with the job. The native range is genuinely vast, from New Brunswick south to Florida and west to Texas and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in upland forests, rocky slopes, and the edges of bluffs, making this one of the most widespread and most underused native shrubs of eastern North America.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe leaves are the calling card. Three-lobed, coarsely toothed, and opposite, they read instantly as the foliage of a small red maple, so much so that in the woods mapleleaf viburnum is most often mistaken for seedlings of Acer rubrum, and the species name acerifolium makes the comparison official: leaves like Acer, the maples. From spring through summer the foliage holds a clean medium green, and then in autumn the shrub does something almost no other native does. Where most shrubs turn red, orange, or yellow, mapleleaf viburnum turns pink: fluorescent rose-pink, lavender, dusty mauve, sometimes deep grape-juice purple, and often three or four of those shades on the same plant at once. Michael Dirr describes the display as shades of fluorescent pink and rose-red to grape-juice purple-red, a genuinely distinctive note in a season that otherwise leans hot.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFlat-topped white flower clusters open in late spring and early summer and draw a wide cross-section of native pollinators, among them the Cetonia scarab beetles that carry branched body hairs almost identical to the pollen-collecting hairs of bees, one of the small, strange, beautiful pieces of evolutionary parallelism. The drupes that follow ripen through several stages, green to red to deep blue to nearly black, and hang in tight clusters into winter for ruffed grouse, woodland songbirds, white-footed mice, and chipmunks. Mapleleaf viburnum is also the larval host plant for the Spring Azure butterfly, Celastrina ladon, a small native blue that emerges with the first warm days and times its life cycle to the new spring foliage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe shrub grows four to six feet tall and slowly forms loose colonies by rhizomatous suckering, a virtue rather than a fault in the woodland borders, shade gardens, and restoration plantings where the plant belongs, and easily curbed by occasional pruning where a tighter shape is wanted. One point matters for fruit: mapleleaf viburnum needs more than one genetic strain nearby to set a heavy crop, so a lone plant will flower beautifully but fruit lightly, while two or more from different sources, or planted alongside another viburnum, will carry the dense berry display the wildlife depends on.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is the shrub for the gardener with too much shade, the native-plant collector after something useful rather than merely showy, and the woodland gardener building a four-season bird and butterfly garden under a canopy of oaks. Voted the Georgia Native Plant Society's Plant of the Year in 2011, mapleleaf viburnum has been quietly earning that regard across its range for a very long time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42058008592499,"sku":"VIBU-ACER-01G","price":58.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IMG_9069_adff08ae-d4a3-43f0-8ee8-7c29f3c9ca4c.jpg?v=1722280618"},{"product_id":"rhododendron-qbackb","title":"Rhododendron 'QbackB' (Sunbow Solar Flare)","description":"\u003cp\u003eSunbow Solar Flare is the patented name for the azalea catalogued as \u003cem\u003eRhododendron\u003c\/em\u003e 'QbackB' (U.S. Plant Patent 27,083), a deciduous native hybrid bred for the very conditions that defeat most azaleas. The plant traces to a deliberate cross made in 1984 by Robert Edward Lee in Folsom, Louisiana, who set out to combine the fragrance and vivid color of the Gulf Coast's own Florida azalea, \u003cem\u003eRhododendron austrinum\u003c\/em\u003e, with the substance of the Exbury hybrids. A seedling from austrinum open-pollinated with the hybrid 'Gibraltar' was crossed onto 'Chetco', and from that union Lee selected this standout in 1990.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReleased as one of a three-part Sunbow series of sun-tolerant native azaleas, Solar Flare lives up to the astronomical name. In early to mid spring, ahead of many companions, the shrub lights up with generous trusses of bright yellow flowers washed with a hint of orange, opening from darker orange-red buds so the whole plant reads two-toned, like a flare caught mid-burst. A rich honeysuckle fragrance pours off the trusses. Unusual among azaleas, this selection was chosen for genuine sun tolerance, which lets a gardener use the plant where a woodland azalea would sulk.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBehind the trademark stands one of the South's most beloved wildflowers. The native deciduous azaleas, the wild honeysuckle-azaleas of old country speech, have perfumed springtime woods from the Carolinas to the Gulf for centuries, and \u003cem\u003eRhododendron austrinum\u003c\/em\u003e lends this hybrid both that scent and the golden fire in the petals. The genus name Rhododendron is Greek for rose tree; the older name azalea, from azaleos, meaning dry, hints at the well-drained ground these shrubs prefer. As with all azaleas, the foliage and nectar contain grayanotoxins and are not for eating, a small caution against a great deal of beauty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDeciduous and upright, reaching roughly four to six feet, Solar Flare suits the sunny edge of a border, a foundation planting with afternoon relief, or a naturalistic sweep among pines where the spring color can carry. Because the plant accepts more sun than most azaleas, a gardener can choose brighter, more open ground, though morning sun with a little afternoon shade still yields the best foliage. Give moist, acidic, well-drained soil, mulch the shallow roots, and pair with ferns, native phlox, and later-blooming shrubs that carry the season forward. Photo courtesy of the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42127322906739,"sku":"RHOD-QBAC-SUNB-SOLA-01G","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IMG_9183_cf1e538a-eb53-4741-b6cd-283ef8870499.jpg?v=1722291766"},{"product_id":"rhododendron-hybrid","title":"Rhododendron 'Sunstruck'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Aromi Sunstruck' is one of the deciduous azaleas raised by Dr. Eugene Aromi, the Mobile educator whose decades of patient hybridizing gave the Deep South a whole race of heat-tolerant azaleas. Beginning in the late 1960s, Aromi crossed the large, brilliant Exbury and Knap Hill strains with hardy southern natives, above all the Florida azalea, \u003cem\u003eRhododendron austrinum\u003c\/em\u003e, to win big, fragrant flowers on shrubs that could take Gulf Coast summers. He described more than fifty thousand seedlings over a lifetime of work and named only the finest hundred or so; 'Aromi Sunstruck' carries that pedigree of selection.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTrue to the name, the flowers arrive like a burst of sunlight. Each tubular, funnel-shaped bloom spreads about one and three-quarter inches across, with wavy-edged lobes of vivid yellow brightened by a warm orange-yellow blotch, and the blossoms gather into loose trusses of roughly fourteen for a full, glowing spring display. The genus name Rhododendron means rose tree in Greek, while azalea derives from azaleos, meaning dry, a nod to the airy, well-drained woodland these shrubs favor; neither name hints at the sheer wattage of the color.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe southern native azaleas standing behind this hybrid have perfumed springtime forests from Florida to the Carolinas for generations, prized in old gardens as bush honeysuckles for their scent rather than any use in the kitchen or the medicine chest. That distinction matters: like every Rhododendron, the leaves and nectar of 'Aromi Sunstruck' contain grayanotoxins and are not to be eaten by people or animals. This is a plant to admire with the eyes and the nose, not the tongue.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDeciduous and informally upright at four to six feet, 'Aromi Sunstruck' is made for the woodland garden, the shaded border, or an understory spot beneath high-limbed pines and oaks. Morning sun brings out the fullest color while afternoon shade keeps the foliage fresh, and a moist, acidic, well-drained soil with a cool mulch keeps the roots content. Set the shrub among ferns, native phlox, and foamflower, or in a drift with other Aromi azaleas so the warm yellows and oranges can play off one another when spring arrives.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42127422324851,"sku":"RHOD-SUNS-01G","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/ScreenShot2024-07-29at7.55.41PM.png?v=1722297751"},{"product_id":"piloblephis-rigida","title":"Piloblephis rigida","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePiloblephis rigida\u003c\/em\u003e, wild or Florida pennyroyal, is a compact evergreen native mint from the sandy scrublands and pine flatwoods of Florida. The plant forms a low, tidy mound of fine, needle-like foliage that carries a clean, resinous, minty fragrance, released at a brush of the hand or on a warm afternoon in the sun.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom late winter into spring, earlier than most garden perennials, tight terminal clusters of small, two-lipped flowers open in soft lavender to lilac, lightly freckled with darker purple. The bloom is quiet rather than showy, but arrives when little else is flowering, and native bees and other early pollinators work the clusters steadily.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAdapted to dry, nutrient-poor ground, Florida pennyroyal wants full sun and sharp, sandy or gritty drainage, and shrugs off drought once established, but will not abide wet or heavy soil. Given those lean conditions the plant stays compact and well-behaved, a natural for native gardens, sandhill and scrub-inspired plantings, rock gardens, and sharply drained beds where restraint is the point.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe strong scent is more than pleasant. The Miccosukee and Seminole brewed the leaves into a minty tea and tucked the aromatic foliage into bedding to repel fleas, and the resinous oil has long interested those looking for a native insect repellent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis plant came to the Woodlanders catalog through Jonas Meyer, who sourced our stock directly from Ryan Schiller's scrub-mint collection, and we are pleased to carry it forward with that clear provenance, preserving both the genetics and the regional story. A subtle but resilient native, Florida pennyroyal rewards gardeners who value plants shaped by place and are willing to meet them on their own terms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhotos courtesy of Adam Hull and LW Ridge.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44235310465139,"sku":"PILO-RIGI-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/PiloblephisrigidaAdamHull.jpg?v=1768787071"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/prophouse-spring-2027.oembed?page=2","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}