Native Plants

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Wednesday - June 17, 2009

From: Yellville, AR
Region: Southeast
Topic: Vines
Title: Non-poisonous, fragrant flowering plant and vine for Arkansas
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

I would like to find a non poisonous flowering plant that smells good, that has small to moderate plant growth, that will do well in sandy soil area, shade to full sun either way. Also would like to find a non poisonous flowering good smelling vine type plant that won't grow too big. I'm putting it in a big pot at the end of my house to cover the trailer hitch. I've all ready built a rock wall and thought some type of vine plant would look great growing over it. Thanks

ANSWER:

Please visit our Recommended Species page and select Arkansas from the map or the pull-down menu. This will give you a list of more than 120 species of native plants that are commercially available for landscaping in Arkansas. You can use the NARROW YOUR SEARCH option to choose plants that fit some of your criteria. For instance, you could choose 'Herb' or 'Vine' under General Appearance. You can also find more choices by doing a COMBINATION SEARCH in our Native Plant Database, choosing Arkansas from the Select State or Province option and making similar choices to the ones you made in the General Appearance and other categories.

For your first request, I am not sure exactly what type of plant you are looking for—a woody plant such as a small shrub or a perennial herbaceous plant. Here are a few suggestions in each category and you can look for more yourself from the list of Arkansas recommended species or in the results of your COMBINATION SEARCH. For each individual plant you can check under "Growing Conditions" to see its light requirements and a description of the soil types it grows best in. You can also check it against the toxic plant databases below—it is easiest to check using the scientific names. We don't have any ready reference to whether the plants have a fragrance. If you see a plant in these recommendations that you particularly like, you could google its scientific name with 'fragrance' and perhaps learn if it has one—pleasant or otherwise.

HERBACEOUS

Conoclinium coelestinum (blue mistflower)

Aquilegia canadensis (red columbine)

SHRUBS

Ceanothus americanus (New Jersey tea)

Hibiscus moscheutos (crimsoneyed rosemallow)

Hypericum prolificum (shrubby St. Johnswort)

Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii (wax mallow)

Rosa carolina (Carolina rose)

Spiraea tomentosa (steeplebush)

None of the species above appears on any of the toxic plant databases listed below.

For the vines, either Lonicera sempervirens (trumpet honeysuckle) or Clematis pitcheri (bluebill) would seem to be a good choice. Unfortunately, Clematis spp. are poisonous if eaten. Lonicera sempervirens does not appear in any of the databases below.

You can check to see if a plant is toxic in the following toxic plant databases:

Poisonous Plants of North Carolina

Cornell University Plants Poisonous to Livestock

Toxic Plants of Texas

University of Pennsylvania Poisonous Plants

Canadian Poisonous Plants Information System