Woody Plants

Read the full plant profile, with design and field notes, on our blog.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

40–60 ft.

Spread

20–30 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Tree

Some plants elevate the familiar into the extraordinary, and Gordonia lasianthus 'Variegata' does exactly that, taking the quiet majesty of the native loblolly bay and dressing it in a silken fringe of cream. The glossy green leaves are edged in irregular strokes of ivory, as though touched by the brush of some moonlit painter in the pine woods, and the whole shrub glimmers softly through every season.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

10–20 ft.

Spread

6–8 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Tree

Grevillea 'Canberra Gem' is a bold and unusual Australian evergreen, a hybrid of Grevillea juniperina and Grevillea rosmarinifolia that brings fine texture, vivid color, and a touch of the exotic to an adventurous garden. The narrow, needle-like foliage is often mistaken for a conifer, until late winter, when the shrub reveals a true identity in a profusion of rose-red, spider-like flowers that spill from the branches and catch the eye clear across the garden.

Hardiness

Zones 8–10

Light

Full Sun

Height

6–8 ft.

Spread

6–8 ft.

Bloom

Red

Plant type

Shrub

Carolina silverbell is one of the loveliest of the small native trees of the Southern woods, a deciduous tree of the southeastern United States that lights the spring understory with hundreds of little white bells. In April and May, before or as the leaves unfold, the branches hang thick with clusters of nodding, bell-shaped white flowers, an effect much like a flowering dogwood but softer, and just as welcome at the woodland edge.

Hardiness

Zones 4–8

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

25–30 ft.

Spread

8–12 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Tree

In spring, the bare gray branches of the two-wing silverbell fill with small white bells, three to six to a cluster, hanging along the year-old wood like a run of tiny lanterns. Each flower is a half-inch, four-lobed cup, and en masse they turn a modest understory tree into one of the quiet highlights of the southern woodland spring. This silverbell grows as a large multi-stemmed shrub or a small tree, rarely more than thirty feet, with an open, layered frame that lets light through to whatever grows below.

Hardiness

Zones 5–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

20–30 ft.

Spread

8–10 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Tree

Of all the silverbells, this is the one plant hunters remember. Halesia diptera var. magniflora is the large-flowered form of the two-wing silverbell, and the difference is not subtle: the white, bell-shaped flowers run half again larger than the type, sometimes an inch and more across, with the lobes cut so deeply that each bloom flares open like a little white star rather than a closed bell. In full flower, before the leaves are fully out, the branches all but vanish beneath them, and a mature specimen becomes a cloud of white in the April woods.

Hardiness

Zones 6–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

15–30 ft.

Spread

10–15 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Tree

This is a cold-hardy citrus hybrid bred to carry oranges into gardens too cold for ordinary citrus, a cross between the trifoliate orange, Poncirus trifoliata, in the large-flowered form called 'English Large', and the notably hardy Changsha mandarin, Citrus reticulata. Both parents are prized for cold tolerance, and stacking the two produces a small, thorny tree that shrugs off freezes that would kill a true orange. The cross matches the well-known US-852 citrandarin, a hardy-citrus line from the USDA breeding program.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun

Height

8–15 ft.

Spread

6–10 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Tree

Heptacodium miconioides, the seven-son flower, is a large, fountain-shaped shrub or small tree that saves its best for the tail of the year, when most of the garden is winding down. In late summer, tiered clusters of small, fragrant, creamy-white flowers open in whorls of seven, the arrangement behind both the botanical and common names. Bees and butterflies work the late flowers gratefully, in a season when little else is on offer.

Hardiness

Zones 5–8

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

10–20 ft.

Spread

6–8 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

The name requires a brief clarification, and then we can move on to the more interesting parts. Hibiscus mutabilis has been called the Confederate rose since the nineteenth century, when the plant naturalized so thoroughly in the gardens of the American South that people assumed it belonged there. The plant does not. The species belongs to Hunan Province in China, where gardeners have grown the shrub for nearly three thousand years, where the flower serves as the emblem of Chengdu, a city known on its account as the City of Hibiscus, and where classical texts on materia medica describe the flowers and leaves in medicinal detail. The name stuck here out of regional habit rather than botanical or historical accuracy, and the plant is indifferent to the label.

Hardiness

Zones 8–11

Light

Full Sun

Height

10–15 ft.

Spread

8–10 ft.

Bloom

Pink

Plant type

Shrub

Traditional use

topical applications, detoxification & cleansing, respiratory support

Hibiscus mutabilis has been grown in Southern gardens for so long that many people assume the shrub is a native, though the species traces to southern China, where gardeners prized the flowers centuries before the plant traveled west. The species name mutabilis, meaning changeable, describes the wild trick of the ordinary Confederate Rose, whose blooms open white in the morning and deepen to pink and then rose-red by evening. 'Rubrum' skips the performance and commits: the single flowers arrive already a saturated rose-red and hold that one deep tone through the day rather than shifting. For gardeners who love the late-season drama of the Confederate Rose but want a single, unwavering color, 'Rubrum' is the selection to plant.

Hardiness

Zones 8–10

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

6–8 ft.

Spread

4–6 ft.

Bloom

Red

Plant type

Shrub

Traditional use

topical applications, respiratory support

'Tosca' is the offspring of a rare and deliberate cross, a marriage of Hibiscus paramutabilis, the regal, large-flowered species of southeastern China, with Hibiscus syriacus, the familiar Rose of Sharon of countless summer gardens. From that union comes a woody shrub that carries the best of both parents: the scale and drama of the Chinese species and the toughness and reliability of the old dooryard favorite.

Hardiness

Zones 6–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

4–6 ft.

Spread

3–4 ft.

Bloom

Pink

Plant type

Shrub

'Annabelle' is a wild American shrub with a hometown. Around 1910 two sisters, Harriet and Amy Kirkpatrick, spotted an unusually full-flowered smooth hydrangea in the woods of Union County, Illinois, dug the plant, and grew it in their garden in the town of Anna. For half a century the shrub passed hand to hand around southern Illinois as a nameless local treasure, until the University of Illinois plantsman Dr. Joseph C. McDaniel traced the trail back to Anna in the 1960s, selected the plant, and released it for sale in 1962. The name 'Annabelle' honors both the town and the Kirkpatrick belles who found the shrub: Anna plus belle.

Hardiness

Zones 4–8

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

3–5 ft.

Spread

6–7 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Traditional use

detoxification & cleansing, digestive health

'All Summer Beauty' answers the oldest complaint about mophead hydrangeas: that a single hard freeze or an eager pruner can wipe out a whole season of bloom. Where classic bigleaf hydrangeas flower only on old wood, this compact selection, three to four feet high and wide, blooms on both old and new growth, so the rounded heads keep coming through the season and return even after a winter that kills the older stems. The name is a promise the plant generally keeps.

Hardiness

Zones 5–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

3–4 ft.

Spread

3–4 ft.

Bloom

Blue

Plant type

Shrub

'Mariesii' is a piece of hydrangea history still in commerce. In the late 1870s the English plant hunter Charles Maries, collecting in Japan for the famous Veitch nursery, sent home the first lacecap hydrangea to reach the West, at a time when European gardeners knew only the round mopheads. That introduction, named 'Mariesii' in his honor, opened Western eyes to the wild, flat-topped grace of the lacecap and became the parent of a whole line of classic cultivars, among them 'Mariesii Grandiflora', 'Mariesii Lilacina', and the blue 'Mariesii Perfecta'.

Hardiness

Zones 6–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

4–6 ft.

Spread

4–6 ft.

Bloom

Blue

Plant type

Shrub

The oakleaf hydrangea is the great four-season native shrub of the American Southeast, and 'Alice' is one of the grandest selections of the species. Hydrangea quercifolia grows wild in the rich woods and ravines of a small range centered on Alabama and Mississippi, where the naturalist William Bartram found the shrub in the 1770s and called it singular and beautiful. Alabama later made the oakleaf hydrangea the official state wildflower, a rare honor for a plant that earns attention in every season.

Hardiness

Zones 5–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

10–12 ft.

Spread

10–12 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

'Alison' is a sister selection to the famous 'Alice,' both drawn from the same native species by the same discerning eye. Hydrangea quercifolia, the oakleaf hydrangea, grows wild in the rich woods of a small Southeastern range centered on Alabama, where the naturalist William Bartram admired the shrub in the 1770s and where the oakleaf now serves as Alabama's official state wildflower. Of all the native shrubs of the region, few offer so much across so many seasons.

Hardiness

Zones 5–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

8–10 ft.

Spread

10–12 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

The oakleaf hydrangea is the great four-season native shrub of the American Southeast, a large deciduous plant with oak-like leaves, white summer panicles, and peeling cinnamon bark. Hydrangea quercifolia grows wild in the rich woods of a small range centered on Alabama, where the naturalist William Bartram admired the shrub in the 1770s, and where the oakleaf is now the official state wildflower. 'Harmony' is one of the boldest selections the species has produced.

Hardiness

Zones 5–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

4–6 ft.

Spread

4–6 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

The oakleaf hydrangea is the great four-season native shrub of the American Southeast, a large deciduous plant with oak-like leaves, white summer panicles, and peeling cinnamon bark. Hydrangea quercifolia grows wild in the rich woods of a small range centered on Alabama, where the naturalist William Bartram admired the shrub in the 1770s, and where the oakleaf now serves as the state wildflower. 'Snowflake' is one of our favorites, and one of the most distinctive oakleafs ever selected.

Hardiness

Zones 5–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

8–10 ft.

Spread

8–10 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Hydrangea serrata 'Woodlander' is a Woodlanders introduction with a story, a compact, small-leaved mountain hydrangea grown from seed collected at the Chollipo Arboretum in Korea and selected here for real garden charm. Daintier than the big bigleaf hydrangeas, this is a refined shrub of two to four feet, carrying flat lacecap flower heads of clear blue in acid soil, ringed with showy sterile florets around a center of tiny fertile ones. The serrated leaves take on a handsome purplish cast that deepens toward autumn.

Hardiness

Zones 6–8

Light

Part Shade

Height

3–4 ft.

Spread

3–4 ft.

Bloom

Blue

Plant type

Shrub

Hypericum densiflorum earns the name densiflorum, densely flowered, in high summer, when the twiggy shrub disappears under rounded clusters of small golden flowers, each one a starburst of fine stamens above five clean yellow petals. Bees work the blooms from July into September, and as the show fades the narrow dark green leaves turn a warm yellow, giving way in winter to reddish, lightly peeling bark on the older stems.

Hardiness

Zones 5–8

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

3–6 ft.

Spread

3–4 ft.

Bloom

Yellow

Plant type

Shrub