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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-099
Wild Senna
Senna marilandica
Maryland Senna is grown for its extrafloral nectaries and long bloom, which feed ladybird beetles, ants, flies and bumble bees well outside the flowering window - the shrub-layer equivalent of Partridge Pea's insect-support role, at roughly four times the height. Despite being a legume, it does not fix nitrogen - nodulation is absent across the genus - and its cathartic sennoside chemistry means foliage and pods should never be grazed or fed as forage.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–9
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Moderate · Wet
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 4–6 ft
- Mature spread
- 3–6 ft
- Plant spacing
- 12–36 in
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
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American Black Currant
Ribes americanum
American black currant is a multi-stemmed deciduous shrub native to the cooler parts of eastern and central North America, from Alberta to…
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American Elderberry
Sambucus canadensis
American Elderberry gives two harvests a year - creamy flower clusters in June for cordial, fritters and tea, and purple-black berries in…
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Aronia Purple
Aronia x prunifolia
Purple chokeberry is a naturally occurring hybrid between red and black chokeberry, native to the eastern United States from Maine south to…
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Autumn Olive
Elaeagnus umbellata
Autumn Olive is a nitrogen-fixing shrub that partners with soil bacteria to feed itself and boost the fruit trees planted nearby. It carries…
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Barbados Cherry
Malpighia emarginata
Barbados Cherry is an evergreen shrub that produces a small, bright red cherry-like fruit eaten fresh or cooked into juice, sauce, jelly, jam…
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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