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Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

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Tasmanian Central Highland forests

Biome

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

Biogeographic realm

Australasia

Lakeshore heath and bleached fallen logs on the edge of Lake St Clair, Tasmania.

Region photo - Kevin Greenaway / Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0; attribution required.

Tasmanian Central Highland forests

The Tasmanian Central Highland forests occupy the Central Highlands, or Central Plateau, of Tasmania in southeastern Australia, a glaciated upland whose ice-age depressions hold Lake St Clair and countless smaller lakes and tarns. Lower slopes carry wet and dry sclerophyll forests and woodlands, while higher ground gives way to alpine conifer stands, montane grasslands, and distinctive cushion-plant moorlands, peatlands, and heathlands. Characteristic trees include the endemic conifers pencil pine (Athrotaxis cupressoides) and King Billy pine (Athrotaxis selaginoides), the southern beeches Nothofagus cunninghamii and the deciduous Nothofagus gunnii, and tree-line eucalypts such as Eucalyptus coccifera and Eucalyptus vernicosa. This is Tasmania's coldest region, with winter temperatures frequently dropping to or below freezing, snowfall most common in spring, and annual rainfall reaching up to about 2,000 mm in the west but much less in the eastern rain shadow of the plateau. Roughly a third of the ecoregion lies within protected areas, including Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park and the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. For cool-climate gardeners, the region is the native home of ornamental genera such as the slow-growing Athrotaxis conifers and the southern beeches (Nothofagus).

RESOLVE 177

Australasia

4,561 sq mi

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

Landscape type

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

Plant region

Australasia

Region footprint

4,561 sq mi

Habitat pressure

Nature Could Reach Half Protected (Dinerstein NNH 2)

Source & care

Plants that can handle this region

A climate-fit shortlist from Plotwright's catalog. Start with the reliable fits, then use each plant page to check light, water, soil, mature size, and local availability.

Showing 613 of 613 climate-fit plants for this region.

Reliable climate fits

Good bets for now and later

371 plants

These plants fit the region today and stay within range under the mid-century projection. Start here when you want choices with the least climate regret.

Yucca filamentosa

Adam's needle

A virtually stemless, broadleaf-evergreen native of central and eastern North America: a basal rosette of rigid, sword-shaped, spine-tipped leaves up to 30 inches long, fringed along the margins with the curly white threads that give the species its name. In early summer a flowering stalk shoots from the center to 5 to 8 feet, carrying nodding, bell-shaped, creamy-white flowers. Tough enough for poor sandy soil, heat, drought, and salt spray, it earns its keep as architectural structure in dry and seaside gardens.

Shrub

Full sun / Part shade

A tall, summer-growing cormous perennial from across sub-Saharan Africa, grown for arching spikes of large, hooded, orange-to-red-and-yellow flowers in summer over fans of sword-shaped leaves. This is the widespread wild African gladiolus and a key ancestor of the big garden gladioli. Unlike the winter-growing Cape bulbs, it is a SUMMER-GROWING corm: plant in spring, grow and flower through summer, then it dies back to a dormant corm for winter. It wants full sun, well-drained soil, and summer moisture, and is one of the hardier species gladioli - surviving to about USDA zone 7 with a deep winter mulch or by lifting the corms in cold-winter areas. The corms are toxic and irritant if eaten and have been used in traditional medicine, never as food. In the wild the hooded flowers are pollinated by sunbirds and long-tongued insects.

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).

Perennial

Full sun / Part shade

A tall, bold warm-season annual from Mexico and Guatemala (the "African" name is a misnomer of its European garden history) grown for large, fully double, pompon-like flowerheads in saturated yellow, gold, and orange over strongly aromatic, finely divided foliage. Plants reach 1 to 4 feet and bloom from early summer to frost in full sun. The petals are edible and used as a culinary garnish and natural dye, and the flowers are the iconic "flor de muerto" of Mexican Day of the Dead. Despite the wide listed zone range it is frost-tender and grown for a single warm season.

Annual

Full sun / Part shade

Aji pepper is the South American chili species behind aji amarillo, Lemon Drop, Bishop's crown and Brazil's dedo-de-moça - one of the five domesticated chili peppers, and a different plant from the familiar garden pepper (Capsicum annuum) and the habanero (Capsicum chinense). It is a perennial shrub native from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru through Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, northern Argentina and central and southern Brazil, and where it can live for years it grows taller than most garden peppers, up to about 6.6 feet. Its white to cream flowers are typically marked with green or gold, and its fruits, which usually hang down in cultivated forms, come in an unusually wide range of shapes, from long tapered pods to the crown-shaped Bishop's crown. Heat runs from nearly heatless types to hot ones; aji amarillo is rated around 30,000-50,000 Scoville units. It is frost tender, so outside nearly frost-free climates it is grown as a warm-weather annual.

Pachysandra procumbens

Allegheny spurge

A native Southeastern North American semi-evergreen woodland groundcover (Pachysandra procumbens), prized for its blue-green to bronze mottled leaves and fragrant white-to-pinkish bottlebrush flower spikes that open at ground level in late winter to early spring. Unlike the widely planted invasive Asian Pachysandra terminalis, this native spreads slowly by rhizomes into well-behaved clumping colonies, making it a low, restrained groundcover for shaded native plantings.

Hippeastrum x hybridum

Amaryllis

Hippeastrum x hybridum is a complex garden hybrid derived from six or more wild Hippeastrum species native to tropical and subtropical South America, developed through intensive breeding since the late 18th century and now the dominant "amaryllis" sold worldwide as a holiday bulb. It produces spectacular trumpet-shaped flowers - 5 to 8 inches across - on stout leafless scapes in red, pink, white, orange, salmon, or bicolour, making it one of the most dramatic winter-flowering houseplants available. The honest catch is toxicity: the entire plant, especially the bulb, contains lycorine and related alkaloids at concentrations that cause vomiting, salivation, tremors, and hypotension in pets and children, so it must be placed out of reach and handled with care.

Perennial

Part sun / Part shade

American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is a loose, open, arching deciduous shrub of the southeastern and south-central United States, grown almost entirely for one spectacular autumn trick. Through summer it is a quiet green background plant, carrying small clusters of pink-to-lilac flowers tucked into the leaf axils. Then, from late summer into fall, those clusters ripen into tight whorls of vivid magenta-purple berries that wrap right around the stems at every leaf joint, so the arching branches look strung with beads. Songbirds strip them through fall and early winter. It is an easy, fast-growing, forgiving native that asks for little: full sun to part shade, ordinary well-drained soil, and room to arch. Site it where the fall berry show can be seen, because in leaf and flower it is plain, and in fruit it is one of the most distinctive shrubs you can grow.

Shrub

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

A fast, suckering native shrub of streambanks and moist thickets across eastern North America, grown for huge flat-topped cymes of tiny lemon-scented white flowers in early summer and the clusters of dark elderberry drupes that follow. Spreads by root suckers into naturalized colonies 5 to 12 feet tall and wide; the flowers feed butterflies and the showy fruit feeds birds. The raw berries are not eaten fresh - they are cooked into jelly, pie, and wine.

Shrub

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

The American elm is the great vase-shaped shade tree that once arched over Main Streets and town commons across eastern North America - a fast, extremely cold-hardy deciduous tree of 60 to 80 feet whose upright trunk divides into a fountain of high, spreading limbs that meet overhead to form a living cathedral ceiling. That iconic form, and the species' tolerance of wet soil and tough urban conditions, made it the default American street tree for a century. Then Dutch elm disease (DED) - an introduced fungal disease carried by elm bark beetles - swept through in the 20th century and killed the vast majority of mature street and shade elms across the continent. The honest reality for a gardener today is blunt: do not plant the unselected wild species expecting it to survive. If you want the American-elm form, plant a DED-tolerant cultivar bred and selected for resistance - 'Princeton', 'Valley Forge', 'New Harmony', or 'Jefferson' - and say so plainly. Where it does grow, it is fast, hardy to USDA zone 3, and remarkably forgiving of wet ground and city stress.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

American germander, also called wood sage, is a widespread North American native perennial in the mint family that runs steadily underground on creeping rhizomes. From early to midsummer it sends up erect, softly hairy stems topped with one-sided spikes of pale pink-to-lavender flowers, each with the distinctive deeply lobed lower lip that gives the germanders their look and makes a generous landing platform for bees. It is a plant of moist open ground - wet meadows, streambanks, ditches, and the edges of thickets - across most of the contiguous United States into southern Canada, which tells you exactly what it wants: sun and a soil that does not dry out. The honest caveat is its vigor: those same rhizomes that fill a bank or a rain garden so readily will also colonize a tidy perennial border and crowd politer neighbors. Site it where it can run, or give it a root barrier, and it rewards you with a long, dependable bee-friendly bloom rather than a maintenance fight.

Perennial

Full sun / Part shade

A rounded, multi-stemmed deciduous shrub native across eastern and central North America, grown for its edible nuts and its season-opening catkins. Showy 2-3 inch yellowish-brown male catkins dangle from bare branches in early spring before the ovate, double-toothed leaves emerge; small egg-shaped edible nuts ripen inside leafy husks by mid- to late summer. Easygoing in average soil and tolerant of clay and black walnut, it suckers into thickets that screen and shelter wildlife.

Shrub

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Good now, not later

Good now, less certain later

201 plants

These plants fit the region as it is today. The projection moves them outside their listed range, so treat them as shorter-horizon or higher-care choices.

Rubus allegheniensis

Allegheny blackberry

A native eastern + central North American thicket-forming shrub producing arching thorny canes + clusters of large sweet black berries in mid-to-late summer. Among the most important wildlife fruit producers in eastern forests - birds, mammals, + insects all depend on the fruit. Like raspberry, biennial-caned (primocane year 1, fruits in year 2 as floricane, then dies back). Spreads via root suckers + tip-rooting cane tips; manage with annual pruning.

A medium-to-large native shade tree of central and eastern North America, reaching 50 to 80 feet with an ovate-rounded crown and large, asymmetric heart-shaped leaves. In June it carries pale-yellow, intensely fragrant flowers on pendulous cymes - each cluster hung from a distinctive strap-like leafy bract - that ripen into pea-sized nutlets. The fragrant June bloom is a premier nectar source: Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as attracting bees and butterflies, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as having special value to both native and honey bees.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Once the dominant canopy hardwood of the eastern United States forest - an estimated four billion trees, prized for fast growth, rot-resistant timber, and an enormous annual crop of sweet edible nuts that fed people, livestock, and wildlife alike. In the early 1900s an introduced Asian fungus, chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica), swept through and functionally destroyed it: by the 1950s the species was effectively extinct as a mature forest tree. Surviving root systems still send up sprouts from old stumps, but the blight almost always girdles and kills them before they can grow large enough to flower and reproduce. The honest reality for a gardener is that you cannot reliably grow a mature wild-type American chestnut today. The realistic paths are blight-resistant backcross hybrids from The American Chestnut Foundation or transgenic blight-tolerant lines still being deployed - not a pure wild seedling, which the blight will almost certainly kill.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

A small native deciduous tree (or thicket-forming, suckering shrub) of eastern and central North America, grown for clouds of fragrant white 5-petaled flowers that open in March before the leaves and for the edible red plums that follow in early summer. It forms a broad, spreading crown with attractive dark reddish-brown twigs that sometimes carry thorny lateral branchlets. A documented larval host for swallowtails and other butterflies, with flowers of special value to native, bumble, and honey bees.

Tree

Full sun / Part shade

American red raspberry

A native bramble (cane) producing red aromatic edible fruit in summer or fall (depending on summer-bearing vs everbearing cultivar). Self-pollinating; spreads vigorously by root suckers + tip-rooting canes. NC State documents extensive Lepidoptera + small mammal + bird wildlife value alongside the edible fruit role. Site where the spreading habit is welcome - naturalized colonies form in sun-exposed open ground.

Amur maple (Acer ginnala, accepted by Kew's Plants of the World Online as Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala) is a small, fast-growing deciduous tree or large multi-stemmed shrub from northeastern Asia - the Russian Far East, northeastern China, and Korea. At 15 to 20 feet it fits where a full-size maple cannot, and it earns that place with three seasons of interest: fragrant greenish-yellow flowers in spring, which is an unusual scent for a maple and an early nectar source for bees; small glossy three-lobed leaves through summer; and reliable, often brilliant red-to-orange fall color that arrives early. It is also one of the hardiest maples, tolerant of cold, wind, dry soil, and a wide range of pH. The honest catch, and it is a serious one for North American gardeners, is that it self-sows prolifically and has escaped cultivation to become invasive across parts of the US Midwest and Northeast, where its shade-tolerant seedlings crowd native shrubs and understory trees in open woods, savannas, and prairies. Several states list it as invasive or a noxious weed. Check your local invasive-species list before planting, and be prepared to remove seedlings if you do.

Tree

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

An upright, clump-forming perennial of the mint family native to the upper Midwest, Great Plains, and into central Canada, named for its anise-scented foliage. From June through September it carries dense terminal spikes of lavender-to-purple two-lipped flowers above square stems and opposite, toothed leaves. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as a nectar source with special value to native bees, bumble bees, and honey bees, and it also draws butterflies and hummingbirds.

Perennial

Full sun / Part shade

The domesticated orchard apple - a deciduous Rosaceae tree grown for its showy, edible fruit and fragrant April blossom of five white-to-pink petals around a ring of yellow stamens. Not native to North America (the genus Malus spans Europe, Asia, and North America, but the cultivated apple is an Old World hybrid lineage). Almost all varieties are self-incompatible: a second, different apple cultivar blooming at the same time must be nearby for fruit to set, and trees are grown on dwarf, semi-dwarf, or standard rootstocks that decide final size.

A small deciduous Rosaceae fruit tree grown for its golden-orange, red-blushed drupes - fragrant, showy, edible, and ripening in summer. Fragrant white flowers (pink in bud) open in early spring before the foliage, two weeks ahead of peaches. That early bloom is also its weakness: the flowers are extremely susceptible to frost injury, so apricots are notoriously hard to crop reliably outside sheltered sites.

Arkansas blue star (Amsonia hubrichtii), also called threadleaf bluestar or Hubricht's bluestar, is a clump-forming native perennial from a tiny wild range in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma that has become one of the most dependable foliage perennials in temperate gardens. It builds a soft, rounded, knee-to-waist-high mound of upright stems clothed in very fine, needle-like, thread-thin leaves, so the whole plant reads as a feathery green cloud through summer. In late spring the stem tips carry loose clusters of small, pale powder-blue, five-pointed star flowers, a quiet but pretty show that draws butterflies and other pollinators. Its headline act comes in autumn, when the fine foliage turns a clear golden-amber that lights up the border and earned it the Perennial Plant Association Plant of the Year for 2011. It wants full sun to part shade and is famously tough, adaptable, and deer-resistant, though it will flop open in too much shade or overly rich soil, so give it sun and a light shearing after bloom if you want it to stay upright.

Perennial

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Symphyotrichum oblongifolium

Aromatic aster

A native central + eastern US perennial with intensely aromatic foliage when crushed and dense clouds of small blue-purple flowers in late fall - often the latest-blooming aster in the eastern flora. Drought + clay tolerant; among the toughest native fall pollinator plants.

A native eastern + central North American multi-stemmed deciduous shrub with dentate (toothed) foliage, white spring flower clusters, blue-black drupes, and reliable fall color. Especially valued for wildlife - among the most-cited native shrubs for fall-migration bird forage.

Shrub

Full sun / Part shade

Future climate matches

Likely better as winters warm

41 plants

These plants are not the best current fit, but the mid-century projection moves this region toward their comfort range.

Vigna subterranea

Bambara groundnut

A low, ground-hugging warm-season annual legume domesticated in West Africa (around present-day Mali and Nigeria) and grown across the continent as a hardy indigenous pulse (GBIF). Trifoliate leaves rise on short, creeping stems, and after the tiny flowers are pollinated their stalks bend down and push the developing pods into the soil, so the crop ripens UNDERGROUND like a peanut. The round, hard seeds are remarkably rich in both protein and carbohydrate, making bambara groundnut a near-complete food and a staple where harsher conditions defeat other beans. It is famously DROUGHT-tolerant and productive on hot, poor, sandy soils, fixing its own nitrogen, but it is a FROST-TENDER, warm-season annual that needs a long, warm season for the underground pods to fill. RHS lists it as a tender, drought-tolerant warm-season annual pulse for full sun, its pods ripening underground (RHS). Outside the tropics it is grown as a summer annual, sown after the last frost once the soil is warm.

Gerbera jamesonii, the Barberton daisy (also Transvaal daisy), is a tufted evergreen perennial herb in the daisy family (Asteraceae) native to the summer-rainfall grasslands and rocky woodland of north-eastern South Africa and Eswatini. It forms a basal rosette of lobed leaves from which leafless flowering scapes rise, each topped by a single large daisy-style flowerhead in orange-red, yellow, pink, or white. It is the wild ancestor of the thousands of florist gerbera cultivars and earns its place as a long-blooming focal point in borders and patio containers, attractive to bees and other insects. The load-bearing caution is frost-tenderness: RHS rates it H1C, meaning it survives outdoors only in summer or the very mildest, frost-free spots and must be overwintered under glass elsewhere (roughly USDA 9-11). It is non-toxic, with no reported poisoning hazard to people or pets, making it a safe choice where toxicity is a concern.

Protea neriifolia, the bearded protea, is a tall, robust evergreen fynbos shrub from the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, grown for its large goblet-shaped flower heads of soft pink-to-cream bracts - each one rimmed with a distinctive 'beard' of black or white fur at the bract tips. Narrow, oleander-like leaves clothe the stems, and the long-lasting blooms are a staple of the cut-flower trade. It is one of the easiest, longest-flowering, and most widely grown proteas, but it is FROST-TENDER (RHS H3, hardy to only about 25°F briefly) and belongs in a warm-temperate or Mediterranean climate, USDA zones 9a-11, or under glass. Like all of its family it is PHOSPHORUS-SENSITIVE: ordinary phosphate fertiliser or bone meal will kill it, and it demands acidic, sharply-drained soil, full sun, and good air circulation. In its homeland the nectar-rich heads are bird-pollinated by sunbirds and sugarbirds.

Felicia amelloides is an evergreen, woody-based perennial subshrub native to a narrow coastal strip of South Africa's Western and Eastern Cape, where it colonises stabilising sand dunes, sandy flats, and rocky outcrops at 0 to 3,280.8 feet. In the garden it delivers a near-continuous flush of sky-blue, yellow-centred daisy flowers on neat mounding growth, typically 12 to 24 inches but capable of reaching about 3.3 feet, making it one of the few true blue-flowered plants for sunny pots and borders. The honest catch is frost-tenderness: it survives only light frost in sharply drained soil and collapses below about 23°F, so outside USDA zones 9-11 it must be overwintered under glass or replaced annually - a real commitment in cool-temperate gardens.

A slender, soft, ferny-leaved evergreen fynbos shrub from the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, treasured for its nodding flower heads ringed with delicate, papery bracts flushed white-to-pink - the traditional Cape "blushing bride" wedding flower. HONESTY (load-bearing): Serruria florida carries a conservation story. It is very rare in the wild, native to only a tiny area of the Cape Provinces (the Franschhoek mountains) and long thought nearly extinct, and it survives largely through cultivation per POWO (Kew). It is also the most demanding member of the protea family in this group and is short-lived, often lasting only 3-5 years. Like all Proteaceae it has cluster (proteoid) roots adapted to nutrient-poor fynbos soils, so it is PHOSPHORUS-SENSITIVE: ordinary phosphate fertiliser or BONE MEAL will KILL it. It needs acidic, extremely sharply drained, sandy soil, full sun, and excellent air movement, and is best grown in a pot or a perfectly drained Mediterranean bed. RHS rates it tender (H3): it is FROST-TENDER and is drought-tolerant once established but resents wet feet. It is grown ornamentally and as a cut flower; it is not edible. Bird and insect visitors work the heads, and in cultivation honey bees forage the nectar.

Cape aloe (Aloe ferox) is a bold, single-stemmed tree-aloe and the source of the bitter aloe of commerce. GBIF gives its native range as the Eastern and Western Cape of South Africa and into Lesotho, part of the Cape Floristic and Karoo succulent flora. It builds a thick trunk clothed in a skirt of old dried leaves, topped with a big rosette of thick, blue-green, red-toothed, spiny leaves, and in winter sends up tall candelabra spikes of orange-red (sometimes yellow) flowers that are a superb cold-season nectar source - in the wild they are pollinated by sunbirds. It is an architectural, extremely drought-tolerant succulent for full sun and very sharp drainage: the number-one way to kill it is overwatering, because wet, cold soil rots the roots and crown faster than drought ever will, so water sparingly and never let it sit wet. It is frost-tender - RHS rates it H3, hardy only to a light frost - so outside warm, dry climates it is best grown large in a pot and moved under cover for winter. The bitter yellow leaf latex (the source of the laxative drug "Cape aloes") is a strong purgative and is toxic if eaten, so the plant is not food. Hardy outdoors in roughly USDA zones 9a-11; everywhere colder it lives under cover.

A small, choice, winter-growing Cape bulb (Lachenalia aloides) that throws up a pair of fleshy, often maroon-spotted strap leaves and a slender stem of pendent, tubular flowers shading from yellow through orange and green to red - a living jewel for a pot or a frost-free rockery. Native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa - the winter-rainfall Western Cape of the Cape Floristic Region (POWO, Kew) - it follows the rhythm of that Mediterranean climate: it is winter-growing and summer-dormant, the opposite of most bulbs, so it is watered from autumn through spring while it is in leaf and flower and then kept dry and at rest through summer. It is frost-tender (RHS H2): outside warm, frost-free climates grow it in a pot in a cool greenhouse or a bright, frost-free room, or in a sheltered, sharply drained spot. In its native fynbos the nodding tubular flowers are pollinated by sunbirds, with bees also visiting. The bulbs are toxic if eaten - it is grown strictly as an ornamental.

A vigorous, scrambling, semi-climbing tender shrub that flowers almost without pause through the warm months, carrying broad clusters of soft sky-blue (or, in the white form, pure white) phlox-like flowers. Known as the Cape plumbago or Cape leadwort, it is native to South Africa (POWO, Kew) and is grown worldwide as an easy, long-flowering ornamental. The honest catch is its frost-tenderness: it is hardy only in USDA zones 9a-11, so in cold climates it is grown as a conservatory or large-container plant, or treated as a summer annual. Left to its own devices it climbs or sprawls 6 to 10 feet and needs support, or hard pruning, to keep its shape; the flower calyces are sticky and glandular and cling to clothing and animal fur (its own seed-dispersal trick), and it suckers. In return it is one of the best blue-flowered butterfly plants for a warm garden.

Shrub

Full sun / Part shade

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis

Chinese hibiscus

A tender tropical evergreen shrub grown for its enormous, flamboyant flowers - broad funnels of red, pink, orange, yellow, or white, single or double, each with a long protruding column of fused stamens. Native to tropical Asia (a cultigen of such ancient cultivation that no certain wild origin survives), Hibiscus rosa-sinensis blooms continuously in warmth above glossy, dark green, evergreen leaves. Each flower typically lasts only a day, but a healthy plant opens fresh blooms in steady succession from spring through fall - and year-round in frost-free climates. It is the classic hibiscus of warm-climate landscapes and patio containers: heat- and humidity-loving, frost-tender, and hardy in the ground only in USDA zones 9a-11b.

Shrub

Full sun / Part shade

A warm-season annual legume domesticated in sub-Saharan Africa (GBIF) and now grown throughout the warm world, cowpea is the black-eyed pea, southern pea, and cowpea of countless kitchens - a protein-rich African staple grown for both its young leaves and its seeds. The bushy or twining plants carry trifoliate leaves, pale lilac-to-white pea flowers, and long slender pods packed with seeds (often the familiar pale seed with a black eye). HONEST CLIMATE NOTE: this is a FROST-TENDER, warm-season ANNUAL for full sun. It is notably drought-tolerant and thrives in heat and poor soil, fixing its own nitrogen from the air, so it does not want rich nitrogen feeding - too much nitrogen gives you leaves instead of pods. Sow it after the last frost once the soil is warm and let it run through a long, hot summer; outside the tropics it is grown purely as a summer annual. The dried seeds are cooked like any bean and the young leaves are eaten as a cooked green. It is bee-pollinated but largely self-pollinating, so a single plant still sets a crop.

Crimson fountain grass

A showy, tender, clump-forming fountain grass grown for its long, soft, nodding, foxtail plumes in pink to purple that arch above mounding foliage all summer and fall - most striking in the burgundy-leaved forms ('Rubrum', 'Fireworks') that anchor summer containers and bedding. Its accepted botanical name is now Cenchrus setaceus, though gardeners still know it as Pennisetum setaceum. HONESTY: the green-leaved species is one of the world's most serious invasive grasses - a fire-promoting noxious weed that has overrun wild land in California, Hawaii, Arizona, and beyond, and is banned or restricted in several places - so grow ONLY the sterile burgundy cultivars, never the seeding green species. Frost-tender (zone 9 and up), it is grown as a summer annual in cold climates.

A warm-season member of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) - a relative of tomato, potato, and pepper - grown for its showy, glossy edible berries that range from white and green through deep purple to nearly black depending on cultivar. The plant is technically a tender herbaceous perennial but is grown as an annual vegetable across most of North America, where it demands a long, hot, frost-free season to fruit well. Drooping violet star-shaped flowers give way to the familiar pendant fruit; the leaves, flowers, stems, and roots are toxic and only the fruit is eaten.

Planting collections

Finished planting recipes where every member can handle this region's climate range. The fit badge uses the collection's most sensitive plant, so a resilient collection is a safer starting point than any single standout.

Annabelle hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle') showing large white ball-shaped flower clusters on a rounded deciduous shrub.

Coral bells (Heuchera 'Marmalade') showing a low mound of ruffled coppery-orange foliage characteristic of the Heuchera villosa-derived hybrids.

Currently suited · 2 plants

Bright shade foundation

A part-shade planting with shrub structure and low foliage contrast.

Annabelle hydrangea

Coral bells

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) mature clump in the green growing season, its upright vase-shaped habit topped by the airy, diffuse open panicles diagnostic of the species.

Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) clumps in a garden bed, showing the species' upright, fine-textured blue-green vase-shaped growing-season habit.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) mature clump in flower, showing its stout upright reddish stems, broad opposite leaves, and pink-mauve flower umbels with young green pods.

A full clump of black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm') in a garden bed, showing the dense mounded foliage base topped with golden, dark-centered daisies on branching stems.

Currently suited · 8 plants

Climate-resilient natives for warming zones (eastern NA)

A pollinator-supporting palette of eastern North American natives with broad hardiness ranges and wide native distributions. Built for gardeners who want a planting that can handle warming zones without giving up wildlife value.

Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus) showing dense needle-like aromatic foliage on woody branches.

Garden sage (Salvia officinalis) showing gray-green velvety foliage + spike of lavender summer flowers.

Oregano (Origanum vulgare) showing spreading mat of small aromatic leaves + pink-white flower clusters.

Currently suited · 6 plants

Mediterranean drought-tolerant edible

A low-water edible palette of culinary herbs + a hardy grape for hot dry sunny sites. Mediterranean-origin plants thrive on neglect; their primary failure mode is overwatering, not underwatering.

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) in bloom, showing pinkish-purple ray petals around a brown-domed central cone on an erect stem.

Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) clump in an open meadow, its several upright square stems each topped by a ragged lavender flower head over toothed mint-family foliage.

Currently suited · 9 plants

Native pollinator border (eastern US)

A continuous-bloom native pollinator strip for eastern North America. Covers spring through frost with host + nectar plants spanning monarchs, native bees, hummingbirds, and specialist Lepidoptera. Little bluestem provides the matrix grass + Hesperiidae host.

Woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata) showing five-petaled pale lavender-blue flowers on slender erect stems above a low spreading mat of foliage.

Wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) whole plant in rocky-ledge habitat, the airy blue-green compound foliage hung with nodding red-and-yellow spurred flowers.

Foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) showing characteristic frothy white spring flower spikes above heart-shaped foliage.

Currently suited · 6 plants

Part-shade woodland edge

A part-shade / bright-shade planting for morning sun or dappled light - eastern North American woodland-edge natives with spring bloom, season-long foliage, and a fern + shrub structure.

Currently suited · 4 plants

Sunny pollinator border

A durable sunny border with summer bloom, seedheads, and upright winter texture.

Starter kits for this region

Generated from catalog plants that already pass this region's climate fit gate, with native matches sorted first when the catalog has enough coverage.

Sunny pollinator border

A sunny, wildlife-forward planting assembled from plants that pass this region fit gate.

Native fit: 0/6

Climate resilient: 6/6

Wildlife links: 22

Host/specialist links: 1

Forage/pollination links: 25

Shelter links: 3

Adam's needle - Climate-resilient African gladiolus - Climate-resilient African lily - Climate-resilient African marigold - Climate-resilient American beautyberry - Climate-resilient American elderberry - Climate-resilient

Shade-edge planting

A softer edge kit for woodland margins, porches, and mixed-light garden edges.

Native fit: 0/6

Climate resilient: 6/6

Wildlife links: 12

Host/specialist links: 1

Forage/pollination links: 16

Shelter links: 0

Adam's needle - Climate-resilient African lily - Climate-resilient African marigold - Climate-resilient Allegheny spurge - Climate-resilient Amaryllis - Climate-resilient American beautyberry - Climate-resilient

Resilient shrub layer

A woody structure layer led by plants that fit both current and projected regional conditions.

Native fit: 0/6

Climate resilient: 6/6

Wildlife links: 20

Host/specialist links: 4

Forage/pollination links: 20

Shelter links: 3

Adam's needle - Climate-resilient American beautyberry - Climate-resilient American elderberry - Climate-resilient American elm - Climate-resilient American hazelnut - Climate-resilient American holly - Climate-resilient

Similar planting regions

Browse other regions in the same biome. Their plant lists can suggest species and combinations worth comparing.

Coastal vegetation and temperate forest mosaic at Kahuitara Point on the Chatham Islands.

RESOLVE 167 - Australasia

Chatham Island temperate forests

The Chatham Island temperate forests cover the remote Chatham Islands archipelago, which lies roughly 800 kilometers east of New Zealand's South Island in the Pacific Ocean and includes the two largest islands, Chatham and Pitt. Isolated for well over a million years, the islands were originally cloaked in relatively low-stature forest interwoven with scrubby heathland and rush swamp, where tree ferns, orchids, and Nikau palms (Rhopalostylis sapida) thrive in a humid, peaty understory; conspicuously, the podocarps and southern beeches typical of mainland New Zealand are absent. The climate is oceanic and windswept, with a narrow temperature range, frequent rain, and constant exposure to Southern Ocean storms. The flora is strikingly distinct, with around fifty endemic plant species, and the ecoregion's flagship is the Chatham Island black robin (Petroica traversi), famously brought back from just a handful of surviving birds, though invasive mammals and past habitat clearance keep much of the native vegetation under pressure. For gardeners, the islands are the wild home of several prized ornamentals, including the Chatham Islands forget-me-not (Myosotidium hortensia) and tree daisies of the genus Olearia.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

310 sq mi

NNH tier 4

Temperate forest and escarpment vegetation in New England National Park, eastern Australia.

RESOLVE 168 - Australasia

Eastern Australian temperate forests

The Eastern Australian temperate forests cover the southeastern Australian wet-eucalypt forest belt - from coastal southeast Queensland through New South Wales (the Great Dividing Range east slopes), eastern Victoria, and the immediately adjacent inland tablelands. Mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans), messmate, manna gum, and brown stringybark anchor the wet-forest canopies, with tree ferns, sassafras, and southern beech in the understory of the wettest gullies. Sydney + Newcastle + Wollongong + Melbourne all sit at or near the coastal edge of this ecoregion.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

RESOLVE 169 - Australasia

Fiordland temperate forests

The Fiordland temperate forests occupy the rugged southwest corner of New Zealand's South Island, a remote landscape largely protected within Fiordland National Park and the Te Wahipounamu South West New Zealand World Heritage Area. Southern beeches (Nothofagus) dominate much of the forest, with silver beech (Nothofagus menziesii) clothing the fiords and red beech (Nothofagus fusca) filling inland valleys, alongside tall podocarps such as rimu, totara, and miro and an understory rich in tree ferns, mosses, and shrubs. The climate is wet and cool-summered, with rainfall that climbs steeply from drier eastern areas to extraordinarily high totals near the western fiords, holding the treeline below about 1,000 meters despite the region's mid-latitude position. Isolation has produced some of the highest levels of endemism of any temperate or alpine area on Earth, with nearly 700 higher plants largely unique to the ecoregion and emblematic birds including the takahe, the alpine kea, the kakapo, and the southern brown kiwi. Gardeners may recognize natives of this region's open alpine zones, where Chionochloa snow tussocks form extensive herbfields above the beech line.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

RESOLVE 170 - Australasia

Nelson Coast temperate forests

The Nelson Coast temperate forests cover the top of New Zealand's South Island, spanning the Tasman and West Coast regions across the flanks of the Paparoa Range and neighbouring mountains. Southern beech (Nothofagus) dominates the drier eastern ridges, while podocarp rainforests in the wetter west carry northern rata (Metrosideros robusta), karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus), and the nikau palm (Rhopalostylis sapida). The climate is temperate and maritime, with high rainfall on the west-facing slopes giving way to a more sheltered, drier eastern side fringed by golden sand beaches. Despite its modest size, the region holds about half of New Zealand's roughly 2,450 plant species and shelters the great spotted kiwi, with much of it protected within Kahurangi, Paparoa, and Abel Tasman national parks. For gardeners, several signature natives here, including the nikau palm, northern rata, and karaka, are valued ornamentals in suitably mild, moist climates.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

RESOLVE 171 - Australasia

New Zealand North Island temperate forests

The New Zealand North Island temperate forests cover the warm-temperate to subtropical native forest of the North Island - historically dominated by kauri in the northern half, podocarp-broadleaf forest (rimu, totara, kahikatea, with broadleaf rata and tawa) across the central and southern reaches. Less than 25% of the original native forest remains; surviving fragments are heavily managed against introduced mammalian browsers (possum, deer, goat).

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

RESOLVE 172 - Australasia

New Zealand South Island temperate forests

The New Zealand South Island temperate forests (also mapped as the Southland temperate forests) cover the southernmost lowlands and adjacent highlands of New Zealand's South Island, spanning the Otago and Southland regions and including The Catlins, the Takitimu Mountains, and the Longwood Range. Original cover was a mix of broadleaf trees and ancient podocarp conifers, with kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides) common in swampy ground and rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum) and totara (Podocarpus totara) on drier sites, while southern beech (Nothofagus, including silver beech) dominated higher inland slopes; red tussock grass (Chionochloa rubra) prevailed in open ground and expanded as forest was cleared. These podocarp and beech communities are a living legacy of the Gondwana supercontinent, reflecting New Zealand's long isolation. Most of the original forest has been lost, and remaining blocks are now safeguarded by reserves such as Catlins Conservation Park, though introduced predators including ship rats, stoats, and possums continue to threaten native birds like the yellowhead (mohua) and the flagship tui.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

Where this ecoregion reaches

The countries, US states, and Canadian provinces this ecoregion touches, from a spatial join of its RESOLVE polygon against Natural Earth boundaries.

Countries

Australia

Educator packet

Region packet

Tasmanian Central Highland forests educator packet

Realm

Australasia

Dominant biome

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

Approximate area

4,561 square miles

States / provinces

Not recorded

Climate descriptor

Not recorded

Classroom prompts

- Which climate and biome facts explain why this region supports its characteristic plants?

- How do native-plant and wildlife-support claims differ from a species-presence claim?

- Which source-backed facts would you cite before using this region in a classroom map activity?

Use the Sources & citations section below for page citation styles and region source links.

Sources & citations

Cite this page

For lesson plans, articles, or regional planting notes that use this Plotwright page. To cite the underlying ecoregion framework or a specific editorial profile, use the source cards below.

Plotwright. (n.d.). Tasmanian Central Highland forests (Tasmanian Central Highland forests). Retrieved 2026, October 9, from https://plotwright.com/regions/resolve-177

Sources for this region

This page cites Plotwright first for the compiled view, then lists the upstream framework, climate, and editorial source pages so readers can cite the original material directly.

RESOLVE 2017 Terrestrial Ecoregions (Dinerstein et al.)

Primary ecoregion framework

One Earth

Wikipedia

Wikimedia Foundation

Open source

Source guide