Rhus javanica, better known today as Rhus chinensis, is the Chinese sumac or nutgall tree, a fast, adaptable deciduous large shrub or small tree of East and Southeast Asia, in time reaching fifteen to twenty-five feet. The pinnate leaves, carried on downy shoots and set along a distinctively winged leaf stalk, turn vivid yellow to red in autumn, and creamy panicles of small flowers open in late summer, feeding bees when much of the garden has finished.
Hardiness
Zones 6–9
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
15–25 ft.
Spread
12–20 ft.
Bloom
Yellow
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
digestive health, respiratory support, general wellness
Magnolia 'Spectrum' is one of the great red-purple magnolias, a large deciduous tree that covers itself in spring with huge, tulip-shaped flowers of deep reddish-purple. Each bloom can span ten to twelve inches, richly colored outside and paler pinkish-white within, opening from fat, purple-pink buds in mid to late spring, later than the frost-prone saucer magnolias and all the safer for it.
'Arp' is the rosemary to grow where ordinary rosemary freezes out, the cold-hardiest of the common culinary rosemaries and a genuine boon to gardeners north of the herb's usual range. Selected in 1972 from a plant growing at Arp, in east Texas, by the noted herb grower Madalene Hill, this selection carries the same needle-like evergreen foliage, aromatic and useful in the kitchen, on a robust, bushy, upright frame, with the bonus of a distinct lemon note in the scent and a soft gray-green cast to the leaves.
Hardiness
Zones 6–9
Light
Full Sun
Height
2–4 ft.
Spread
1–2 ft.
Bloom
Blue
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
digestive health, mental & emotional well-being, general wellness, topical applications
Among the upright rosemaries, 'Miss Jessopp's Upright' stands as the tall, columnar backbone of the herb garden, sending stiff, aromatic branches skyward in a narrow plume rather than the low sprawl of the creeping kinds. The cultivar carries the name of Euphemia Jessopp, an Edwardian gardener whose plant the great plantsman E. A. Bowles selected and passed into wider cultivation, and the shrub has been grown under her name for more than a century. Botanists have lately moved rosemary out of the old genus and into Salvia, so that the plant now answers to Salvia rosmarinus as often as to the familiar Rosmarinus officinalis, though gardeners and cooks are in no hurry to give up the older word.
'Florence' is a robust selection, possibly a hybrid, of the native Oconee azalea, Rhododendron flammeum, chosen and named by our friend Charles Webb of Superior Trees in Florida. The name honors Florence, Mr. Webb's wife, and both have long been good friends of ours. The plant traces back further still, to a group of azaleas that came originally from the late Aaron Varnadoe of Colquitt, Georgia, who collected, propagated, and shared so many fine native azaleas across the South.
Michaux's sumac is a low, colony-forming native shrub, rhizomatous and densely hairy, rising only one to three feet on erect stems from a spreading root system. The compound leaves turn beautiful shades of orange and red in fall, and the dwarf, running habit makes the plant a fine, well-behaved groundcover-scale sumac for a sunny to lightly shaded native planting.
Abeliophyllum is a genus of exactly one species, a quiet distinction it has held since botanists first described it from Korea in 1919. It belongs to the olive family alongside lilac and true forsythia, and in the wild it survives at only a handful of sites in the Korean hills, where it is now protected by law as an endangered plant. By the 1930s it had reached gardens in Europe and North America and earned an Award of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society, and collectors have cherished it ever since. 'Roseum' is the blush-pink form of that rarity.
The pineapple lily, Eucomis comosa, is a summer-flowering bulb from the grasslands and damp meadows of eastern South Africa, grown the world over for one of the most whimsical flower spikes in the plant kingdom. From a large bulb rise broad, strap-shaped leaves, and out of their center in mid to late summer climbs a stout stalk two to three feet tall, densely packed with dozens of small, starry, greenish-white flowers and crowned at the very top with a tuft of leafy green bracts, the whole thing a dead ringer for a pineapple.
Among the sweetbay magnolias there is a curious dwarf that most references overlook, though at Woodlanders we feel the plant deserves proper recognition. This form, Magnolia virginiana var. pumila, grows wild on the frequently burned pinelands of the southern Coastal Plain, and looks to be an adaptation to that fiery world: the plant stays small, begins flowering while very young and low, and spreads slowly by underground runners into a modest colony.
Abies firma, the Momi Fir, is a beautiful evergreen conifer of narrow pyramidal habit, with stiff, sharp-tipped, dark green needles and the capacity in time to become a large tree. It holds a particular distinction in the South: this is about the only true fir that tolerates the heat and humidity of the southeastern United States, where most of its mountain-loving relatives simply melt away.
A red or scarlet flowered buckeye of the Gulf Coast, Aesculus splendens stands close to the red buckeye, Aesculus pavia, and may be no more than a striking form of that species. Dirr, in his Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, notes that Rehder listed this buckeye as a distinct species and that several horticulturists feel strongly about the authenticity, the chief differences being scarlet flowers and leaves felted on the undersides. Native to Louisiana and perhaps other Gulf Coast states, the scarlet buckeye is grown much as the red buckeye is.
A low, often half-prostrate form of the red buckeye, Aesculus pavia var. humilis keeps to a small, spreading shrub where the typical red buckeye grows into a small tree. The scarlet spring flowers come in smaller panicles, and in every other respect the plant follows the species: lustrous palmate leaves that break early, a love of moist, well-drained woodland soil, and the same magnetism for returning hummingbirds.
A rare dwarf form of the Ohio buckeye, Aesculus glabra var. nana was found in just a few places in the hills of northern Alabama and northern Georgia, far south of the species' usual range. Where the typical Ohio buckeye climbs to thirty feet or more, this dwarf settles into a rounded shrub of about six feet, carrying the same handsome palmate leaves divided into finger-like leaflets that flush early and color in fall.
Acer fabri, known as Faber's maple or emerald jade maple, is a small evergreen to semi-evergreen tree of rounded habit whose slender, prominently veined, pointed leaves are entirely unlobed; few would guess the plant for a maple until the winged seeds appear. The new growth flushes a fine copper red, and the samaras ripen red as well before fading to brownish yellow in late summer, so the tree carries color without depending on the usual autumn display.
Summersweet has long been a shrub gardeners plant by the nose. Native to the moist woods and pond margins of the eastern United States, Clethra alnifolia earned the old country names Sweet Pepperbush and Summersweet for the honey-and-clove perfume that pours off the white summer spikes, a scent that carries clear across a garden on a warm afternoon. Colonists found a further use for the plant: the flowers, crushed in water, raise a soft lather, and were once pressed into service as a field soap.
The summersweets are among the most fragrant of American shrubs, native to the moist woods, swamp edges, and pond margins of the eastern United States, where the white summer spikes scent whole acres of low ground. Country people knew the plant as Sweet Pepperbush, for the peppercorn-like seed heads, and as Summersweet, for the honey-and-clove perfume; the crushed flowers even raise a soft lather in water and once served as a woodland soap.
Clethra alnifolia and the southern Clethra tomentosa are stoloniferous deciduous shrubs commonly called Summersweet or Sweet Pepperbush. They form colonies in moist acid soil and make good garden subjects. They are valued for their terminal spikes of fragrant white flowers in summer. Plant in sun or semi-shade and provide adequate moisture. This selection has leaves that are speckled and banded with cream to white variegation. Found by Mike Creel in Lexington County, SC. Plant best in semi-shade.
Clethra fargesii is the Chinese cousin of our native summersweets, a graceful deciduous shrub from the mountain woodlands of central and western China, gathered and named for the French missionary-botanist Paul Farges. Kin to the better-known Clethra barbinervis, the Chinese clethra stays a little shorter and carries dark, glossy green leaves, broadest through the middle and sharply toothed, that color bronze-red to maroon before they fall.
This low shrub with tiny evergreen leaves grows in moist peaty sand in the southern pine flatwoods from South Carolina to Florida and Alabama. The pink summer flowers may be needed to convince some people that this is indeed a Kalmia. It is a charming little shrub for a moist but well-drained sandy acid soil in the sun or semi shade. Care must be taken to insure it is not overtopped or overwhelmed by competing vegetation.
This is a federally listed endangered species. NOT FOR SALE IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE. It is a new species discovered by Bob McCartney in Putnam County, Florida in 1990 and introduced by Woodlanders. Medium mint family shrub larger than most other Conradina species. Has aromatic oval leaves unlike other Conradinas which have needle-like leaves. Large pale lavender flowers similar to Conradina grandiflora. Native to very limited area on deep sandy soil. If given sunny site with good drainage it grows well in the garden.
