Browse Plants

Rocky Mountain columbine is a beautiful, hearty, native perennial with blue and white flowers. It self-sows readily.

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This airy perennial has ternate dark green leaves, and produces many nodding flowers from midspring to midsummer. Its scarlet flowers have yellow, downward-pointing sepals.

'King of Hearts' has bright rose-pink, heart-shaped flowers in clusters over blue-green parsley-like foliage. It offers the garden a long blooming season, plump flowers, and rich colors.

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Rows of white flowers dangle above the fern-like foliage, opening in April and continuing intermittently until October.

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Golden yellow foliage emerges from the ground in early spring and is soon accompanied by rosy-pink broken hearts that open in succession for nearly a month as the stems elongate.

This foxglove has long-lasting flowers in seductive shades of burnt umber. Its glossy, linear leaves are evergreen in mild climates, but turn brown in colder climates.

'Cherry Cola' , a relatively new cultivar, features deep, dark burgundy foliage and small but sharp teeth (handle with care!). In summer, orange blossoms appear, and hummingbirds love them. Like other Dyckias, this plant tolerates extreme heat and is perfect for hot, dry locations. -Jeff Moore, Regional Picks: Southwest, Fine Gardening issue #120

This cultivar boasts single, long-tubed, brick red flowers and dark bronze-red leaves and stems.

'Crimson Curls' heuchera is fairly pest free, but it requires constant moisture to look its best. White flowers contrast with ruby-colored foliage that deepens in direct sun. 'Crimson Curls' flowers in late spring, and if deadheaded, will flower again by late summer. It needs too much water to grow well in containers. Instead, use it massed along a walkway or in a woodland bed. -Ron Smith, Regional Picks: Upper Plains, Fine Gardening issue #120

Clump-forming perennial features a mound of maple, or ivy-like, long-petioled leaves (3-5" wide) which are an attractive deep purple above and beet red beneath. Foliage color may fade to a bronze green in hot summers. Tiny, pinkish white, bell-shaped flowers in open, airy panicles are borne on slender, wiry, dark red stems extending well above the mound of leaves typically to a height of 15-24" in late spring to early summer. Attracts hummingbirds to the garden! They look especially good used around the edge of a border. -Santa Rosa Gardens

Pacific Coast hybrid irises (PCH irises) have a range of blossom colors: from white to light lavender to deep plum. The compact, narrow foliage is glossy, evergreen, and pest resistant. PCH irises are drought tolerant once established, but they do like deep watering during the dry season. -Sylvia Matlock, Regional Picks: Northwest, Fine Gardening issue #127

This beardless, crestless iris produces blooms in midspring that are the color of terra cotta. Quick growing, with long, swordlike foliage, this plant attracts butterflies and hummingbirds, and works well in beds and borders.

'Husker Red' is one of the few penstemons that does well in wet winters and hot, humid summers. Ruby-toned leaves appear in spring, followed in late spring and early summer by 3-foot-high stems adorned by panicles of white blooms.  The flowers attract bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies, but the plants are not magnets for deer or rabbits. In autumn and winter, songbirds feast on the seed. For a stunning display, plant 'Husker Red' in groups. -Chris Kelley, Regional Picks: Midwest, Fine Gardening issue #120

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Red star-shaped flowers with small white centers bloom atop erect stems from spring to autumn. This evergreen perennial or subshrub is often grown as a summer annual. It generally stays under 2 feet tall in the garden, but the species can reach over 6 feet tall in the wild. Grow in a bed or border, or in containers.

This species has open-faced coral-red blossoms from late spring until fall. 

This tender perennial from Peru is highly unusual for its dramatic, purple-black flowers and pistachio-green calyces. The flowers appear from late summer to early fall. The drama is heighted by its contrasting silvery leaves and stems, which are densely cloaked in woolly, white hairs. Plants grow to about 18 inches tall and 12 inches wide. This specimen looks great tumbling over the edge of a container.

Found in the Great Basin deserts of the western U.S., Salvia dorrii is by far one of the most beautiful native Salvia species. A small, woody shrub, it comes into bloom in late spring with short spikes of showy purple bracts and blue flowers. The semievergreen foliage is distinctively silvery gray and highly aromatic. It grows to 18 inches high.

This sage is eye-catching in and out of bloom, with its attractive basal rosette of feathery foliage and showy display of dense flower spikes. The flowers come in shades of blue, white, and light pink, but the dark blue strain (S. jurisicii 'Blue') is the most desirable. Best planted in enriched garden loam, Yugoslavian cutleaf sage blooms in late spring.

Dwarf common sage is a tightly compact form of the culinary common sage (S. officinalis), which is notable for its narrow, fragrant, gray-green leaves and lavender-blue, white-lined flowers in late spring or early summer. It is extremely xeric and does not self-seed. 'Minimus' grows to just 15 to 18 inches tall.