St. John's worts are the ornamental shrubs and perennials of the genus Hypericum, grown for cheerful, five-petaled yellow flowers and the bright, tufted boss of stamens at each center. Blooming through summer, often over a long season, they range from low, spreading kinds useful as ground cover to rounded, shrubby forms for the border. Several follow the flowers with showy berries in red, pink, or bronze, carrying the display into fall.

In the landscape these are dependable, undemanding plants for sun and reasonable soil. The low, spreading kinds carpet a bank or edge a path; the shrubby ones fill a border or a foundation planting with clean foliage and bright, long-lasting bloom. Tough, adaptable, and quick to establish, they give reliable summer color in exactly the sunny, ordinary spots most gardens have to fill.

We grow the garden hypericums for their long summer flower, their easy temperament, and their value to pollinators. The pollen-rich flowers are busy with bees through the warm months, and the berries that follow on some kinds carry interest, and a little food for birds, into autumn. For bright, low-fuss color on a sunny site, few groups are more forgiving.

Give them full sun to light shade and well-drained soil, and a light trim in early spring keeps them neat and floriferous. Set them among our Sun Lovers, use the spreading kinds with our Ground Covers, and find more regional plants in our Southeastern Natives.