Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
No, highland doghobble is not fire resistant; three eastern U.S.
sources place it on the risky side of their scales.
The H rating from Ohio State’s extension service sits just below VH on its five-band flammability scale; both bands carry advice to avoid. Virginia Cooperative Extension and Virginia Tech also rate it H, which is the highest category on their three-band scale. Both assessments say the shrub is not tolerant of drought or wind.
The Forest Service and state Firewise programs reach a similar conclusion through a different system. Their four-point scale places highland doghobble at 3, “At Risk,” between “Moderately Firewise” and “Not Firewise.” Their description identifies long, arching branches that make it a sprawling shrub used in informal landscapes.
Highland doghobble is an Ericaceae shrub native to the Southeastern United States, reaching about eight feet at maturity. The scales differ, but none clears it as fire resistant. Taken together, the findings classify it as highly flammable and support keeping it away from structures.
Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.
Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AL, DC, DE, GA, KY, MA, MD, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, SC, TN, VA, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in AL, GA, NC, SC, TN, VA.
Introduced / established
5 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 5b; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.
Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 65252, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 2 — 5–10 ft from the structure; maintained lawn or fuel breaks, with easily ignited evergreens avoided [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale rating)
Firewise Landscaping: do not plant within 5 ft of structures (keep out of Zone 1) [OSU B921 source-category siting] (with its avoid rating)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
