Flowers fragrant

The Black cherry is an important southern tree for both wild life and commercially. Young black cherries tend to have a conical crown but when given enough room, the mature trees develop long limbs and arching branches giving it an oval shaped crown. The Black cherry’s fall foliage is a golden…

Aronia prunifolia or Purple Chokeberry is a natural hybrid between A. arbutifolia (Red Chokeberry), and A. melanocarpa (Black Chokeberry), a more mountainous species. All three Chokeberries have very diferent distribution maps. Purple Chokeberry is much less abundant than the Red Chokeberry. It is much like Red Chokeberry in habit, that is,…

Carolina Jessamine is a vigorous, evergreen, high-climbing woody vine native from Virginia to Florida, west to East Texas and down into Central America. It is a staple ornamental in the south because it has bright golden, fragrant flowers attractive to bees, butterflies and birds, including hummingbirds. Jassamine is a twining vine,…

Common Witchhazel is a deciduous shrub 12-18′ tall, and sometimes taller, famous for producing its aromatic, crinkly yellow flowers as it drops its foliage in late October/early November. Seeds from the previous season are ready for dispersal at the same time, and are expelled with some force from their capsules. Witchhazel…

Garden Phlox is a staple of the late summer and early fall garden and ‘Jeana’ is a super-rewarding cultivar of it to grow. It provides wonderful color with its bright pink, aromatic flower clusters, attractive to people, butterflies and hummingbirds alike. Named after a woman in Nashville who identified this genotype,…

Possumhaw Viburnum is a 12-15-foot tall (some report up to 20 feet) x 12-15-foot wide, deciduous, wet-tolerant shrub of surprising ornamental value found in Eastern states from Texas north to Canada. It ioccurs in all three NC zones, mountains, piedmont and coastal plain, though in the mountains the quite similar Viburnum…

Smooth Blackhaw, native to much of mid-latitude Eastern and central U.S., is a large deciduous shrub or small tree which usually grows to around 15 feet tall and wide, but if grown as a single-stemmed tree form, it can reach up to 30 feet. It thrives in full sun to part…

Whorled Milkweed is a tough, attractive herbaceous perennial easily grown in dry, sunny locations in naturalistic as well as garden settings. It is on the small side, reaching 2.5 feet high and wide, with bright white flowers and delicate, whorled foliage. Like all Milkweeds, it is toxic to livestock, so it…

Iteaceae is a family of only one genus of trees and shrubs, and of the 27 species in that genus, Itea is the only one found in the U.S. (the vast majority of the others being from east Asia). Virginia Sweetspire, as often known as Itea, is a versatile and lovely…

Foamflower is a beautiful, clumping flowering perennial with immense versatility for shady gardens, featuring racemes of starry florets with a “foamy” effect above foot-tall mounds of attractive basal foliage. The leaf shape may vary from almost heart-shaped to deeply lobed with pronounced venation, and the leaf veins are often tinged with…

Foamflower is a beautiful, clumping flowering perennial with immense versatility for shady gardens, featuring racemes of starry florets with a “foamy” effect above foot-tall mounds of attractive basal foliage. The leaf shape may vary from almost heart-shaped to deeply lobed with pronounced venation, and the leaf veins are often tinged with…

This plant is not currently for sale.  This is an archive page preserved for informational use. Sparkleberry or (Farkleberry) is an attractive, tough, underused woodland shrub usually eight to ten feet in height, though occasuinally it takes on a tree form. It is found in dry woods and open forests from…

Although the Sweet Pitcherplant has a fragrant, maroon-colored flower at the top of a leafless stem, usually taller than the pitchers (about 10 inches), it is not the flower that fascinates people. The hollow pitchers of this insectivorous perennial plant are leaves modified to passively capture small animal creatures. Insects attracted…

A bright spring ephemeral and one of the first flowers to emerge in the brown, still-dormant forest, the Bloodroot is an exciting harbinger of wonderful things to come. The delicate white flower with prominent golden stamens emerges on a single stalk arising from a woody rhizome, opening during the day and…

‘Dixie Lace’ Pitcherplant is a hybrid, introduced by local NC botanists Larry Mellichamp and Rob Gardner. Technically, the lineage is: (Sarracenia leucophylla x Sarracenia rubra ssp. wherryi) x (Sarracenia psittacina x Sarracenia purpurea). A cross of two hybrid crosses! But do not be dismayed, the genes are local as all Sarracenias…

Dwarf Coastal Azalea, one of the smaller native azaleas at about 6 feet (with more exposure to light, usually on the order of 4 feet), occurs in sand hill and coastal communities from southern New Jersey to Georgia. It is adorned in spring (April, May) with clusters of wonderfully aromatic, funnel-shaped…

The Pinxter Azalea is a deciduous native azalea famous for it’s stunning flowers all the way from New Hampshire to Alabama. In NC, it is present in most counties of the state except for the highest mountain counties and the swampiest counties in the northeast corner. Pinxter Azalea’s funnel-shaped flowers, with…

Swamp Azalea is a shrub up to 8 ft tall at maturity with an upright, loosely branched, multi-stemmed habit and a tantalizing, musky floral scent in late spring. Clusters of very fragrant bright white (often with pink accents), trumpet-shaped flowers with five petals, slender tubes and elegant, exserted stamens appear in…

Wild Bergamont is a fantastic wildflower native to almost every state in the country! Like other members of the mint family, it has square stems with coarsely toothed and slightly hairy opposite leaves. Wild Bergamont flowers are…well, kind of wild; they are lavender to pink, with irregular tubular petals, protruding from…

Wax Myrtle is an amazingly versatile evergreen shrub or small tree which is such a great wildlife plant that it could be useful for increasing the pollinators and birds in your yard. Its foliage is very fragrant, and evergreen, and the blue berries are attractive to people as well as to…

Sourwood is a small to medium (30-70’) deciduous, understory tree found throughout the Carolinas in mixed hardwood forests It is the only member of its genus (Oxydendrum) and has no known subspecies, varieties or forms. It is in the Ericaceae family, and its closest relatives are in the genera Pieris and…

This plant is not currently for sale.  This is an archive page preserved for informational use.  Allegheny or Mountain Spurge is a short, shrubby ground cover which barely reaches a foot tall. Grown in dappled sun to full shade, it spreads by rhizomes to form a carpet of semi-toothed, crisp blue-green…

Purple Passion Flower is an attractive, fast -growing perennial vine reported to occur in most counties of NC and in most Southeastern states. Climbing by means of axillary tendrils, it grows to 12 feet (some say up to 25 feet, but we have not seen that) and is naturally found in…

Wild Sweet William or Woodland Phlox is a beautiful and beloved wildflower that can brighten a shady area in need of spring color, — ranging from a soft exquisite true blue to lavender and occasionally, white. It occupies a position between the low groundcover phloxes and the tall garden phloxes. During…

Speckled Phlox is an upright, clumping, herbaceous perennial with beautiful bright clusters of small, aromatic, tubular flowers. It grows in moist meadows, along riverbanks and in bottomland woodland openings in the eastern mountains and piedmont and in the midwest, although it is not really common in the wild. Generally unbranched, the…

Phlox stolonifera, or Creeping Phlox, is a low-growing Phlox found in rich deciduous woodlands, along stream banks and shaded rocky slopes mostly in the Appalachian Mountains from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Unlike the other ground-hugging Phloxes, therefore (which hale from more xeric locales), this one thrives in shady and semi-shady niches on…

Phlox subulata, often called Moss Pink even though it comes in as many colors as the other groundcover Phloxes, is a mat-forming, sun-loving, semi-evergreen herbaceous perennial found in rocky and sandy barrens from New York to Michigan and south to Georgia and Louisiana. Leaves are needle-like or linear, and the vegetative…

Phlox subulata ‘Amazing Grace’ is a cultivar of Phlox subulata ssp. subulata (see that entry). The flowers of  ‘Amazing Grace’ are bright white with the tiny golden exserted stamens closely surrounded by small maroon markings (nectar guides) at the base of the petal lobes. The USDA plant distribution map linked below…

Spicebush is a shrubby tree — five to ten feet-tall (and often wider than tall) — which has a great many attributes, beginning with its wonderfully spicy-citrusy aromatic foliage. The blooming period for Spicebush occurs during the mid-spring and lasts about 2 weeks. The males (yes, it is dioecious) have showier,…

Magnolia virginiana, or Sweetbay Magnolia, is a small tree or shrub at home in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains and piedmont as far north as New York.. With 3- to 5-inch, oval, leathery green leaves with silvery undersides, and beautiful, sweetly-scented, small (3″ wide) ivory flowers in spring and summer,…

Solomon’s Plume is a widespread perennial, reported in all of the U.S. mainland states, but conspicuously almost entirely absent from the coastal plain from NC down to Florida and over to Texas and throughout the great plains. It is abundant here in the piedmont, with gracefully arching, unbranched stems reaching up…

Coastal Plain or Dwarf Joe Pye, E. dubium, is a tough, rewarding late-season herbaceous perennial whose family must be represented in the native garden. It is very handsome, the fragrant mauve to pink flowers appearing in cone-shaped clusters on red stems in late summer and lasting through fall, similar in many…

Joe-Pye Weed is an impressive (six to nine feet), erect, sun-loving perennial which is found mostly in wet thickets and stream margins from Quebec to Texas. Leaves are lance-shaped and whorled around the hollow stem (a diagnostic character for the species). The stems, which are mostly unbranched, are green below with…

Dwarf Fothergilla is a marvelous, slow-growing, deciduous shrub typically about three feet tall at maturity. In nature it is found in bogs (pocosins) and moist lowlands and savannahs in coastal areas of the Southeast from North Carolina to the Florida panhandle and Alabama. The soft, white bottle brush inflorescences are strongly…

The Yaupon Holly is a distinctive evergreen native holly found in coastal counties in NC and other Southeastern states over to Texas. It tolerates a whole range of moisture regimes (wet to dry), soil types and pH, sunlight conditions (full sun to shade, but more sun makes more berries), and is…

Sweet Pepperbush is a beautiful, multi-stemmed woody shrub native to our East coast from Nova Scotia and Maine down to Florida and over to Texas. In NC it is found in swamps and moist woods on the coastal plain and outer piedmont. Clethra is rhizomatous by nature, and if allowed, can…

‘Ruby Spice’ is a cultivar of one of our most beautiful native shrubs, Clethra alnifolia or Sweet Pepperbush. They are deciduous shrubs of medium stature with rich, dark green foliage, and flowers with head-turning, sensuous, honey-sweet scent in mid- to late-summer when few other shrubs are flowering. The flowers of ‘Ruby…

Sixteen Candles’ Clethra is a more compact cultivar of Clethra alnifolia, a wet-tolerant and beautiful coastal shrub all along the eastern seaboard and southern coastal states. Like the species, ‘Sixteen Candles’ is long-blooming, having sweet-fragrant flowers in the heat of the summer against a rich, medium-to-dark green foliage. But the plant…

Sweetshrub, or Carolina Allspice, is a deciduous woody shrub six to ten feet in height and equally wide famous for its heady aromas. In nature it is found on streamsides and in moist woodlands from Western NC into Tennessee and south into Alabama (Southern Appalachians and Piedmont), but being an old…

Sweetshrub, or Carolina Allspice, is a deciduous woody shrub six to ten feet in height and equally wide, famous for its heady aromas. In nature it is found on streamsides and in moist woodlands from Western NC into Tennessee and south into Alabama (Southern Appalachians and Piedmont), but being an old…

Found in moist woods, stream banks, limestone glades and rocky bluffs from Virginia south to East Texas, Fringe Tree is an outstanding ornamental shrub or small tree (twelve to twenty feet) well adapted to our climate in the Carolina piedmont. It thrives in moist, fertile, well-drained soils in full sun to…

In North Carolina, Yellowwood is found only in a few of our western-most counties bordering Tennessee, and is among the rarest of our native trees. It is thirty to fifty feet high and nearly that wide at maturity and is prized as an ornamental for its form, for its smooth, Beech-like…

Although not actually native to NC (it naturally occurs in mid-Alabama), Bottlebrush Buckeye is a favorite shrub in our area because of its show-stopping, 8-12-inch tall panicles of white, feathery flowers with prominent reddish anthers and pinkish filaments. These attract numerous butterflies and other pollinators in early summer and then are…

Agarista, or Florida Leucothoe, is a tall (8-12′), evergreen, shade-loving shrub, well suited to our hot and humid southern summers. It is found in coastal environments, in a few counties from NC to Florida, but it performs well in upland Piedmont clay-based soils. We have seen it planted under large, deciduous…

Red Chokeberry is a charming, multi-stemmed, deciduous woody shrub native to Atlantic and Southeastern states. It is found in swamps and wet places, and is therefore very useful for wet areas, but is happy in upland gardens as well and established plants even tolerate drought. This shrub is hard to beat…