Growing Zone 5

Blazing star sends up vertical purple wands that bloom top-down in midsummer heat, pulling in monarchs and swallowtails from across the yard.This tough native prairie perennial grows from a corm, handles Alabama drought and clay once established, and returns reliably every year. The stiff...

The real French tarragon - keen anise-vanilla flavor with a faint numbing bite that makes bearnaise, chicken, and vinegar taste like France.This is French tarragon, the sterile clone propagated only from cuttings and divisions - the seed-grown Russian type sold cheaply elsewhere is coarse...

Bright lemon-and-thyme perfume that seasons roast chicken, butter, and shortbread without any of the sourness of actual citrus.A low, woody, evergreen sub-shrub that holds its leaves through most Alabama winters and keeps cutting through the cold months. It resents wet feet far more than...

Feathery fronds and crisp anise-sweet stems that lift roasted fish, pork sausage, and citrus salads from spring straight through fall.This is herb fennel, grown for its fronds, pollen, and seed rather than the fat bulb of Florence fennel. It is a strong perennial across...

Strawberries fruit their first season from a small bed or a few containers, and homegrown berries taste nothing like the firm shipping types.In Alabama the traditional method is an annual planting: set June-bearing plants like 'Chandler', 'Camarosa', or 'Sweet Charlie' in the fall, mulch...

Raspberries deliver a delicate, aromatic berry you rarely find fresh in stores, on compact canes that fit a small sunny corner.Be realistic about raspberries in central Alabama: they evolved for cool summers, and our July heat and humidity bring root rot, spider mites, and...

Pears are the low-maintenance fruit tree for Alabama yards - long-lived, heavy-bearing, and productive with far less spraying than peaches or apples.Fire blight is the one thing that kills pears in the Southeast, so stick with resistant Southern types: 'Kieffer', 'Orient', 'Moonglow', and 'Warren'...

Nectarines are peaches without the fuzz - firmer, more aromatic, and ripening right in the heart of Alabama's summer fruit season.Nectarines grow like peaches here and want the same conditions: full sun, fast drainage, and a variety matched to our roughly 600-800 chill hours,...

Mulberries crop heavily within a few years, feeding your family and every songbird in the county with sweet berries through late spring.Mulberries are practically carefree in Alabama - fast growing, drought tolerant once established, and unbothered by the disease pressure that plagues stone fruit....

Elderberry gives you creamy summer flower plates, dark berry clusters for syrup and jelly, and a native shrub pollinators and songbirds work all season.American elderberry is a fast, suckering native shrub that tolerates the damp, heavy spots most fruit refuses - ditch edges, creek...

Blackberries are the easiest fruit you can grow in Alabama - a short row of thornless canes yields gallons of berries by early summer.Modern thornless erect varieties like 'Ouachita', 'Natchez', and 'Navaho' were bred for Southern heat and humidity and need no trellis, just...

Apricots ripen sweeter off your own tree than anything shipped, and the pink-white spring bloom arrives weeks before the rest of the orchard wakes up.Apricots are the trickiest stone fruit for the Deep South: most standard varieties want 700-1,000 chill hours, and the ones...

Witch hazel opens spidery yellow flowers in late fall and winter when nothing else is blooming, then turns clear gold each autumn.Witch hazel is a large native shrub or small multi-stemmed tree that flowers on bare or nearly bare branches in the cold months,...

Weigela loads its arching branches with rosy trumpet flowers in late spring, and hummingbirds work it from the first day it opens.Weigela is an easygoing deciduous shrub covered in pink, red, or white tubular flowers in late spring, with many modern varieties reblooming lightly...

Viburnums stack three seasons into one shrub: spring flower clusters, summer berries that feed birds, and reliable fall color or evergreen structure.Viburnum is a large and varied group ranging from fragrant deciduous types to dense evergreen screening shrubs, all of them dependable landscape plants....

Rose of Sharon delivers big tropical-looking hibiscus flowers from midsummer to frost, exactly when most flowering shrubs have quit for the year.Rose of Sharon is an upright deciduous shrub that blooms through the hottest part of the season in white, pink, lavender, or blue,...

Ninebark gives you burgundy, gold, or lime foliage from spring to fall, white flower clusters in May, and peeling winter bark.Ninebark is a native, four-season shrub grown mainly for its colored foliage, with clusters of white or pink flowers in late spring and shredding,...

Mountain laurel opens clusters of cupped pink and white flowers in late spring above leathery evergreen leaves that hold their looks all winter.Mountain laurel is a native evergreen of Appalachian slopes, prized for intricately marked flowers and handsome year-round foliage. Be honest with yourself...

Flowering quince lights up the bare end of winter with scarlet, coral, or white blossoms on leafless branches weeks before anything else opens.Flowering quince is an old Southern dooryard shrub that blooms in late winter, long before its leaves appear, and its cut branches...

Clematis climbs a trellis or lamppost and opens saucer-sized flowers in purple, pink, red, or white through the warm months.Clematis is the classic flowering vine, with large single or double blooms held on wiry stems that scramble up any support you give them. The...