Dark green, leathery, evergreen foliage; fragrant, early, creamy yellow spring flowers with a scent like orange blossoms; and a broad, dense habit all have made this a popular plant in southern and western gardens for screens, massed plantings, borders, and as foundation plantings. It is particularly effective in containers or trained as a small, crooked-stemmed [...]
This refined cousin of the rhododendron and azalea mixes beautifully with its relatives and various acid growers such as ferns and other woodland plants. A neat evergreen shrub with a compact habit, pieris requires no pruning. It grows slowly to 6 to 12 feet high and 6 to 8 feet wide, with a slightly drooping [...]
Native to boggy areas of the eastern United States and Canada, the cinnamon fern is one of the earliest ferns to emerge in the spring. Young fronds are covered with white, woolly hair before they unfurl. When full grown, the waxy fronds are yellow-green and grow 24 to 36 inches tall and 6 to 8 [...]
Mondograss (O. japonicas) is the most grasslike of the lilyturfs. It is identified by dense clumps of long, 1/8-inch-wide leaves that arch over into mounds 8 to 10 inches high. The leaves are dark green and coarse in texture.
Small, pale purple flowers, mostly hidden among the leaves, appear in July and August, followed by pea-sized [...]
Although little-known and usually hard to find, the cup flower is a diminutive delight in the garden. Neat, spreading mounds of the fine-textured foliage are smothered with blue-violet or purple flowers all summer long. Flowers hold their color without fading even in the brightest sun.
Nierembergia is outstanding in large beds or as a 6 to [...]
Nicotiana reaches the height of grace when massed in large beds. Each plant is anchored by a low rosette of large leaves from which spring tall, slender stems. Long, thin tubes at right angles to the stem open into star-shaped flowers in white and shades of mauve, red, maroon, pink, yellow, green, and yellow-green. The [...]
Not even remotely related to true bamboo, nandina is a popular shrub in southern gardens for its variety of ornamental assets and easy care. Its strongly vertical form contrasts nicely with delicate, wispy foliage that is evergreen in mild climates. Erect, creamy white flower spikes borne on the ends of the vertical branches in June [...]
In late summer or early fall, after planting a bed of bulbs, cast about a generous supply of forget-me-not seeds. You will be rewarded in spring with a beautiful blue haze as the perfect backdrop for
daffodils and tulips, one that will keep the bed colorful well into early summer.
Forget-me-nots reseed abundantly to perform year after [...]
The Virginia bluebells have drooping, bell-shaped flowers that appear in the spring. The erect, leafy plants are most attractive in an informal or wild garden.
The outer portion of the petals is sky blue and the inner part pinkish or purplish. Each flower is about an inch long, and they are produced in clusters that hang [...]
The ostrich fern is one of the largest ferns native to central and northern North America. Under optimum growing conditions, the fronds grow at least 4 to 6 feet tall, and sometimes taller. The fronds are a lustrous dark green and grow from a central crown. Underground runners rapidly grow outward from the crown and [...]