Yellow buckeye, a giant flowering tree of the Appalachians, comes down the mountain and does just fine away from the other mountain folk (mountain trees, in this case). Stately, showy, native, and shady. If you have space to let it dominate and you want something a little different than typical...

Bottlebrush buckeye is a captivating, native, and mammoth-sized shrub with tremendous white "bottlebrush" flowers. The flowers are perfectly named: bottlebrush buckeye aptly describes both the whiskery flowers and the buckeye-looking seeds. The compound palmate leaves, reminiscent of windmill palm fronds, are distinctive. You'll see this buckeye shrub in big parks or expanse...

Red buckeye is a feast for the eyes when in flower and the parent tree of these seedlings has flowers that are a TRUE deep red (we mention this because we read that sometimes the tree flowers greenish, though we've never seen that). Can you name many another native southeastern...

Athens was the first sweetshrub I purchased; not only that, it was one of the first shrubs I purchased. Relaying that Athens was one of the first shrubs purchased by a young horticulturist is meant to portray that this is a sweetshrub to covet.  The flowers are yellowish or creamy greenish - but...

Sweetshrub or Carolina allspice is a favorite native plant; the flowers being like no other. The petals on these flowers are actually tepals. Another famous example of a tepal is the "petals" on Magnolia flowers. Variety purpureus is extra special due to rich purple color of the backsides of leaves, maturing leaves especially (i.e., not...

We like Table Mountain willow-leaved sunflower because it's significantly more compact (1-2' tall) than the typical species (8' tall). This means you can actually see the flowers on Table Mountain because they're at knee-level rather than towering over you in the stratosphere. The little yellow sunflowers are prolific! The plant...

🌱 We will have more ready in May. BananAppeal is half the size as other small anise-trees, forming a 3-4' tall by 3-4' wide, round shrub. So this one has a different shape, being a lower mound, rather than an upright-oval form like FLA Sunshine. Small anise-tree grows wild in...

We were fond of elderberry bushes when we'd float by them in a canoe - all in flower during summer paddles on Georgia rivers. Then we learned the dried berries can be steeped in vodka for a medicinal concoction and we had to plant a few for ourselves. We planted...

If Vincent van Gogh gardened, I think he'd favor yellow shrubs. They do so much to lighten dark garden nooks and improve my mood. This native shrub is a colorful variation on the typically green, native viburnum theme - use it in shady shrub borders and for naturalizing in woodlands. The yellow new...