The tropics, grown against the odds. Sub-tropicals bring bold leaves, vivid flowers, and a whiff of the jungle to gardens well north of the frost line, thriving through a hot Southern summer and, with a little shelter, holding on through the cold.
Few tender shrubs work as hard for as long as the lantanas, and Lantana camara 'Hybrida' distills the whole genus down to a single clear note of yellow. The species belongs to the verbena family, Verbenaceae, and hails from the West Indies and the warm reaches of Mexico south through tropical America, where the plant scrambles along roadsides and clearings in a haze of nectar and butterflies. The genus name is a borrowed one: Renaissance botanists lifted 'Lantana' from an old Latin name for the wayfaring tree, Viburnum lantana, whose domed flower clusters the lantana blooms happen to echo. The epithet camara is murkier, glossed variously as a vaulted chamber or a small boat, the true meaning long since lost to the record.
Every so often a plant arrives not from a breeder's bench but from a neighbor's yard, and Lantana camara 'Miss Huff' is one of those happy accidents. The selection was found in cultivation near Athens, Georgia, in the garden of the Miss Huff for whom the plant is named, and introduced to the trade by the former Goodness Grows Nursery. What set this lantana apart was cold tolerance: where most of the tribe sulk and die at the first hard freeze, 'Miss Huff' has proven the hardiest lantana in commerce, with well-established clumps shrugging off brief dips to a few degrees below zero and returning faithfully from the root even in zone 7.
Where the shrubby lantanas stand up, Lantana montevidensis lies down and travels. This is the trailing lantana, a low, weeping member of the verbena family, Verbenaceae, native to the warm grasslands of southern South America, from southern Brazil across Uruguay and Paraguay into Argentina. The species carries a place name in the epithet: montevidensis means of Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital near which the plant was first gathered and described, so the botanical name is really a small geography lesson tucked into Latin.
Malvaviscus arboreus, affectionately known as Turk's cap, has charmed gardeners for generations with vibrant, coiled blooms that never quite open, each red flower staying furled like a little turban, which is exactly how the plant earned its name. A close cousin of the hibiscus in the mallow family, Malvaceae, this tough, subtropical shrub carries a story as rich as the scarlet flowers, and two more common names besides: wax mallow and sleeping hibiscus.
Malvaviscus drummondii is the small Turk's cap, the wild, native cousin of the larger Mexican wax mallow and, for many Southern gardeners, the better plant of the two. A relative of the hibiscus in the mallow family, Malvaceae, this shrubby perennial is native to Texas, the Gulf Coast states, and on south, and grows wild in the dappled shade of woodland edges and stream banks where few other bright flowers will bloom.
'Pam Puryear' is the soft-pink small Turk's cap, a lovely departure from the usual fire-engine red of this tough native mallow. The furled, never-quite-open flowers keep the charming Turk's cap form, less than two inches long and produced without pause through the hot months, but here they glow a gentle shell pink that reads cool and quiet in the summer border.
This is the white-flowered small Turk's cap, an uncommon and quietly beautiful form of the normally scarlet Malvaviscus drummondii. The flowers keep the familiar furled, never-opening Turk's cap shape, under two inches long and produced steadily through the hot months, but open in clean, soft white rather than red, a cool and unexpected note in the summer garden.
The Meiwa kumquat is the sweet one, the kumquat you can pop whole into your mouth and eat skin and all. A small, tidy, evergreen citrus, Fortunella crassifolia carries round, bright orange fruit a little over an inch across, and where most kumquats offer a sweet rind wrapped around sharply sour pulp, the Meiwa softens the contrast: the peel is thick and honey-sweet, the flesh only mildly tart, so the whole fruit eats like candy off the branch.
Every so often a plant does one strange, particular thing so well that the rest of the description turns into footnotes. Musa velutina is one of those. In late summer, from the top of a pseudostem no taller than a person, comes an upright spike of pink bracts and small tubular flowers, and behind the flowers a cluster of velvety pink bananas about three inches long. Then, when ripe, the fruits peel themselves. The skins split into curling strips and fold back on the stalk, exposing white flesh and a knot of hard black seeds, unprompted, in full view of whoever happens to be standing on the patio.
The Nagami kumquat is the easiest citrus most gardeners will ever grow, and the only one meant to be eaten peel and all. Clusters of small, oval, sunset-orange fruit hang against dense, glossy evergreen foliage, each one a burst of contrast: a sweet, tender rind wrapped around bright, tart pulp. Pop them whole for a sweet-and-sour snap, candy the rinds, slice them into a salad, or simmer the winter harvest into jewel-toned marmalade.
The purple firespike answers a quiet complaint of the warm-climate gardener, that the tropical border runs to reds and hot corals and forgets the cooler end of the spectrum. Odontonema callistachyum carries erect spikes of tubular, lavender-to-amethyst flowers at the tip of nearly every branch, each spike lengthening to almost a foot as the buds open in succession from fall into spring. The genus name joins the Greek odous, a tooth, with nema, a thread, for the small toothed filaments within the bloom, while the epithet callistachyum means, simply and accurately, beautiful spike. The leaves are broad, glossy, and faintly fleshy, a lacquered dark green that holds the plant together as a handsome mound even between flushes.
Few plants light a shaded corner the way firespike does. Odontonema strictum raises erect spikes of slender, tubular, scarlet flowers to a foot long from late summer into winter, each spike a torch held above dark, glossy, quilted foliage. The genus name pairs the Greek odous, a tooth, with nema, a thread, for the toothed filaments inside the bloom, and the plant answers to a tangle of common names, firespike, cardinal's guard, and firestick among them, though firespike is the one that sticks.
Podranea ricasoliana, the pink trumpet vine or Port St. John's creeper, is a fast-growing evergreen climber from the warm regions of South Africa, a member of the trumpet-creeper family, Bignoniaceae, prized for showy, trumpet-shaped flowers.
The procimequat is a rare and fascinating citrus hybrid, born from a botanical marriage of the Eustis limequat (itself a cross of kumquat and lime) and the Hong Kong kumquat (Fortunella hindsii). The result is a precocious, compact plant that combines the zesty lime tang of the limequat parent with the tiny, ornamental charm of the wild kumquats, all on a frame small enough for a patio pot.
Cape honeysuckle is a rangy, vine-like evergreen shrub from southern Africa, grown for glossy, compound leaves like a trumpet vine's and, above all, for the showy clusters of orange to orange-red tubular flowers that hummingbirds and, in the wild, sunbirds cannot resist. A member of the trumpet-vine family, Bignoniaceae, the plant can be trained up a support, clipped into a loose informal hedge, or left to cascade over a wall or bank.
The Thomasville citrangequat is more than a fruit tree, a living piece of Southern horticultural history. First fruited in Thomasville, Georgia, this remarkable hybrid was raised in 1909 by the legendary USDA citrus breeder Walter T. Swingle and formally named in 1923. The tree stands as a pioneering achievement in citrus breeding: a three-way cross combining the cold-hardy Willits citrange, itself a cross of sweet orange and trifoliate orange, with the Nagami kumquat, Fortunella margarita.
Tibouchina urvilleana, the princess flower or glory bush, is a Brazilian subtropical grown for some of the most saturated purple flowers in the garden. Soft, velvety, prominently veined leaves clothe the arching stems, and against that green the large, five-petaled, royal-purple blooms, each with a spray of curved violet stamens, seem almost to glow. In all but essentially frost-free areas the shrub grows as a dieback perennial, returning from the roots each spring.
A charming citrus hybrid for containers, winter patios, and kitchen harvests. Known as the calamondin orange, x Citrofortunella mitis 'Calamondin' is a compact, cold-tolerant citrus treasured for abundant fragrant blossoms, ornamental good looks, and tart, edible fruit. A natural cross between the mandarin orange, Citrus reticulata, and the kumquat, Fortunella, calamondin is equally at home on a patio or in a bright kitchen window, offering both beauty and bounty the year round.
Yuzu Ichandrin is not a lemon. This is something older and considerably more interesting, a naturally occurring hybrid between Ichang papeda, Citrus ichangensis, and Satsuma mandarin, long cultivated across the high-elevation citrus regions of China and Japan, and among the most cold-hardy citrus in existence. Where standard yuzu, Citrus junos, and true lemons would surrender to a Southern winter, Ichandrin holds. Mature, established trees have come through ten degrees Fahrenheit with nothing worse than tip dieback. This is, by any honest measure, the citrus a zone 7 or 8 gardener actually gets to keep.
