Tall kangaroo paw

A bold, clump-forming evergreen perennial from South Africa, grown for big rounded umbels of trumpet-shaped blue (or white) flowers held on tall bare stalks above arching, strap-shaped leaves in mid-to-late summer. It is widely sold as "lily of the Nile," but that is a misnomer - the plant is South African (the Cape provinces and KwaZulu-Natal), not from the Nile. Spectacular and easy in warm climates, this evergreen Agapanthus is frost-tender, so in cold-winter areas it is grown in a container and overwintered under cover. The RHS has given several Agapanthus praecox forms its Award of Garden Merit and rates this evergreen species half-hardy (H3 - needs winter protection).

A clump-forming herbaceous perennial grown for its showy late-season flower heads: masses of tiny star-like flowers borne in flattened cymes 3 to 6 inches across that emerge rosy pink, deepen to rose-red, and fade to coppery-rust as they die. Gray-green, fleshy, succulent-like leaves form upright clumps to about 24 inches. Easily grown in dry-to-medium, well-drained soil in full sun, it is drought tolerant and attracts butterflies, and its foliage and dead inflorescences persist into winter for added interest.

A tuberous-rooted member of the aster family native to Mexico and Central America, grown for showy summer-to-fall blooms in nearly every color except blue. Hybrids in commerce span ten flower-form groups (single, anemone, collarette, waterlily, decorative, fall, pompon, cactus, semi-cactus, and miscellaneous) and range from 1 to 6 feet tall. Winter-hardy only to USDA Zones 7-10; in colder regions the tubers are lifted in fall and stored frost-free, so most North American gardeners grow it as a summer annual.

The classic white-and-yellow garden daisy - a clump-forming herbaceous perennial bearing showy single flower heads of white ray florets around a yellow central disc from midsummer into fall. A garden hybrid bred by Luther Burbank in the 1890s near snow-covered Mt. Shasta in northern California, it grows 2 to 3 feet tall and is a mainstay of the perennial border, cottage garden, and cutting garden. Easily grown in dry-to-medium, well-drained soil in full sun, it is drought tolerant, attracts butterflies, and is resistant to deer and rabbit browsing.

Firebush (also called scarlet bush, hummingbird bush, and Mexican firecracker) is a fast-growing, evergreen, soft-stemmed shrub in the coffee family (Rubiaceae) and a Florida native: it grows wild from central Florida south through the Florida Keys, and on through the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America into South America as far as Argentina. In a frost-free landscape it forms a dense, spreading shrub of 6 to 12 feet, occasionally to 15 feet, with whorls of oval leaves that are red-hairy when young and speckled red or purple at maturity, reddish stems, and terminal clusters of slender, tubular, orange-red flowers 0.5 to 1.5 inches long nearly all year. Hummingbirds and butterflies work the flowers, and birds eat the small berries, which ripen from red to black and are edible. It is frost-tender: a freeze can kill it to the ground, it regrows from the roots through zone 9, and farther north it is grown as a 2 to 3 feet summer annual or container plant. Buy with care, because several non-native firebushes are sold under the same name: plants labeled 'African', 'Dwarf', 'Compacta', or 'Firefly' are often Hamelia patens var. glabra, a variety from southern Mexico to northern South America with smooth leaves and mostly yellow flowers, and 'Bahama firebush' is a different species, Hamelia cuprea. Florida's native form is Hamelia patens var. patens, the plant this record describes.

Sasanqua camellia is an evergreen shrub native to the forests of southern Japan - Kyushu, Shikoku, and the Ryukyu Islands - where it grows on forest margins and hillsides. In gardens it is prized as the earliest-flowering camellia, bearing fragrant blooms from September through January when almost nothing else is in flower, and it tolerates more sun and drought than its cousin Camellia japonica. The honest catch is cold hardiness: open flowers are blackened by hard frost, and the plant itself is reliably hardy only from zone 7a south, making it unsuitable for much of the northeastern and midwestern United States without meaningful shelter.