If you are looking for a distinctive plant, one that everyone doesn’t have, consider the cassias or sennas.
They come from many lands. Most of them do well in the South. Some have medicinal value, but those I list here I grow just for their outstanding beauty.
Cassia Alata
Empress candle, Cassia alata, is a small deciduous shrub 8’ to 10’ feet tall. The compound leaves have from 12 to 28 oblong leaflets 2 ½” inches wide.
In late summer, bright yellow flowers appear on 8” to 12” inch candlelight spikes at the end of each branch.
I grow a plant on each side of the steps leading to my old rose garden, where they look like magnificent candelabra lighting the way.
The empress candle is susceptible to cold here in northern Louisiana, but it usually grows again from the roots in spring. You can grow it from seed, too, like an annual.
When the small, glossy brown, triangular seeds ripen, I collect them to store until January. Then I sow them in a flat.
Later, I pot up the seedlings and finally move them to permanent garden locations when frost danger is passed.
If you soak the seeds in warm water for two hours before you plant them and set the seed flats in a warm location, they will come up in a week or ten days.
The empress candle is not finicky about soil but like plenty of sun. I feed the plants with a soluble fertilizer monthly during the growing season.
Cassia Splendida
Cassia Splendida grows 10’ to 12’ feet tall and has fresh green leaflets 3 inches long. The deep yellow flowers with dark stamens are nearly 2” inches across and are produced during most of the growing season. They are held in pyramidal, loosely branched clusters or panicled racemes.
Unless winter is mild, the shrub dies to the ground but generally returns in spring. Mine have never had seeds.
As insurance against winter loss, I root 9-inch cuttings in a box of sand and then pot them up and grow them indoors over winter.
In spring, I set the plants on the shrub border along the south side of my house, where I can see the flowers through the window and watch the leaves close up for the night.
Splendida also grows well in half shade and responds to feeding and watering.
Cassia Corymbosa
Cassia corymbosa is evergreen and, in this part of the South, may reach 20’ feet in height.
It has six dark green leaflets on each stem and clusters of 1-inch bright yellow flowers at the ends of every branch so that the tree is a sheet of yellow from late autumn until the first hard freeze.
I have two on opposite sides of a walk. The tops are bent and tied together, forming a green archway.
You can grow this plant in a shrub border or use it for a tall evergreen hedge with plants spaced 5’ feet apart. Fall pruning encourages dense, twiggy growth.
The 2-inch seed pods remain all winter, and birds—especially the white-throated sparrow—hang on them precariously to get at the round seeds they hold. The leaflets fold at twilight.
If this cassia has a fault, it is the little plants it sows from seed all over the garden. Many of these flowers bloom in the first year.
You can always be generous with these; many fellow gardeners will welcome them to their gardens.
44659 by Kitty Simpson