Browse Plants

(1 user review)

This 3-foot-tall and 2-foot-wide clumping perennial displays spiky racemes of white flowers in late spring and early summer followed by bright white berries with dark tips on bright red stalks. The berries are exceptionally showy and especially effective in shady woodland beds.

Actaea racemosa is a native woodland perennial with white, somewhat fuzzy flowers in midsummer that wave above astilbe-like, deeply cut foliage. The flowers can be unpleasantly scented, thus the name "bugbane." Formerly in the genus Cimicifuga, this plant is great for use in a woodland garden or moist border.

(1 user review)

Actaea rubra bears white flowers from spring to early summer on plants up to 2 feet tall and 1 foot wide. In late summer, glossy red berries develop. A few cultivars exist. This woodland perennial is native to the U.S.

(3 user reviews)

This clumping woodland perennial with deep green foliage up to 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide bears spikes of  fragrant white flowers 1 to 2 feet long in fall. Cultivars exist with varying leaf colors and forms.

(1 user review)

This chocolate-leaved cultivar up to 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide bears compact spikes of white flowers in late summer. This plant may languish in very warm temperatures. The flowers remain ornamental for three to four weeks.

Unlike other bugbanes, 'Hillside Black Beauty' offers deep purple-black foliage. From late spring to late summer, its dark hue makes a wonderful backdrop for colorful foliage and flowering shade plants. In fall, fragrant, cream-colored flowers appear on tall, wandlike stems. An added plus: this plant is deer resistant. --Michael Ruggiero, Regional Picks: Mid-Atlantic, Fine Gardening issue #127

(1 user review)

This plant produces fast-growing, edible, pungent, onion-like leaves. Small, white flowers appear in late summer.

(2 user reviews)

This tall, woody-based perennial is distinguished by its elegant flowers. This cultivar displays the purity of a single, white, open-faced flower with a delicate center ring of golden yellow stamens. Every moment of floral development from bud to seed brings satisfying interest.

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

(1 user review)

The outside of the spathe is the color of dark chocolate, and the inside, milk white and as smooth as marble. Its hood sweeps up to an arrogant point, exposing its sumptuous white lining and the thick blunt spadix, which is also milk white. This plant produces two leaves per tuber, one leaf with three lobes and one with five. Sometimes they are mottled with silver, which makes them very handsome, at least until the plant goes dormant in summer.

Asparagus is a perennial vegetable whose edible shoots are harvested in spring. Male plants produce better crop yields because they do not flower or fruit. The foliage is garden worthy because of its tall size and masses of feathery, delicate texture. Female plants may self-seed abundantly. Plants do not like to be moved, so choose a permanent location. Foliage is useful in floral arrangements.

This striking, richly-textured, deciduous ground cover has heart-shaped leaves that turn mauve in autumn. Purple, blue, or white flowers appear in late summer to early fall.

Boltonias are vigorous perennials grown for their sprays of aster-like flowers, which appear above clean, gray-green foliage. Their vigorous nature makes them suitable for naturalizing. They are also great in the border (and for cutting), but will benefit from frequent dividing to keep in bounds, and may be cut back in late spring for more compact plants.

The heart-shaped leaves of this perennial may stretch to 12 inches across. In mid- to late summer, showy white flower umbels add to this plant’s drama.

This plant is one of the most popular campanulas. Its stiff mat of slowly spreading evergreen rosettes is topped by 3-foot-tall, all open, bell-shaped lavender to white flowers in late spring.

(2 user reviews)

This species produces mauve-pink, purple, or white flower spikes in spring over deeply divided gray-green leaves that are barely 10 inches tall. 

This terrestrial orchid has 3 to 7 oval to lance-shaped leaves. Unusual flowers almost 4 inches long, with a rose-pink floral globe under a pair of twisted petals, are borne singly or in pairs on upright stems in summer.

This small perennial blooms in summer with cup-shaped, waxy flowers that have numerous yellow stamens. Use Deinanthe in a shade garden, a woodland, or a rock garden.

(3 user reviews)

'Blue Bird' is a Pacific Hybrid delphinium grown as an annual or biennial. Its mid-blue flowers have white centers. The flowers are large but short-lived and bloom on tall stems from early summer to midsummer. Grow at the back of a border or in the middle of an island bed. There is nothing quite like delphiniums in the garden.