Browse Plants

This low, mounding, Southwest native shrub up to 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide has feathery foliage that contributes fine texture to a garden. While evergreen in milder climates, in temperate climates it is deciduous. Its small, pealike purple flowers appear in late summer and continue into fall.

Despite a soft, delicate appearance, trailing indigo bush is one of the toughest groundcovers around. The feathery, silvery green compound foliage makes the clusters of tiny, rosy purple flowers stand out at close range. The blooms, which occur most heavily in spring and summer, return sporadically the rest of the year. This plant is excellent for stabilizing soil on slopes because its stem nodes root wherever they come in contact with the ground.

This celebrated hybrid is notable for its green leaves with golden-yellow margins that fade to cream. Its deep-pink buds open to pale, pink-white blossoms in early spring and give off a sweet fragrance.

This rounded shrub has leaves with white margins, and pale pink star-shaped flowers that bloom in the spring, fall, and sometimes in between.  The blossoms release an intoxicating fragrance. 

This small shrub to 3-4 feet tall and wide blooms from late spring to fall with a liberal sprinkling of small, white, highly fragrant flowers over grey-green leaves that form a fine-textured mound. This shrub is semi-evergreen. It will retain some of its leaves in winter, though in colder climates it may be completely deciduous.

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This evergreen species produces rose-purple buds that open to white and are intensely and exotically fragrant. The blooms (from mid-winter to early spring) are followed by red fruit and dark-green, glossy leaves.  

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This winter daphne has yellow-margined leaves and rosy-pink flower buds that open to white. Fragrant flowers bloom in winter and early spring. Reaching 4 feet tall and wide, 'Marginata' is beautiful against a wall or near a patio or deck where its fragrance can be appreciated. Or grow in a shade garden where its variegated leaves really shine. Daphne odora is evergreen and has a rounded form. It is native to China and Japan.

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This compact variety performs well as a groundcover and is an excellent choice for the mixed border or rock garden. 

While not a true honeysuckle (Lonicera spp. and cvs., USDA Hardiness Zones 3-10), Northern bush honeysuckle has honeysuckle-like yellow flowers and glossy green foliage on a native, deciduous shrub 3 to 4 feet tall and 3 to 5 feet wide. The flowers appear in early summer and last through summer, and the foliage occasionally exhibits bright red fall color.

Southern bush honeysuckle has an attractive thicket-forming habit. Glossy green leaves with tapered tips emerge tinged with bronze and mature to mid-green on reddish stems. Sulfur-yellow flowers in terminal clusters to 3 inches across appear in summer.

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This small shrub from China is noteworthy for its spherical clusters of very fragrant yellow flowers that bloom in winter and early spring.

This is perhaps the most refined Enkianthus, bearing dainty, white pendulous bells in May. It forms an elegant, rounded shrub to 6 feet with gracefully tiered branches and produces brilliant scarlet color in autumn.

A member of the conifer clan, Ephedra equisetina is commonly called bluestem joint fir due to its finely textured blue stems. In spring, it features a conspicuous froth of yellow blooms that are often followed by red berries. It is perfect for naturalized areas since it reliably spreads.

Japanese fatsia has very large, hand-shaped glossy leaves that glow in the shade. New leaves fan out on stiff stems all along the ringed trunks. The flower clusters of older fatsias attract bees. -Nellie Neal, Regional Picks: Southeast, Fine Gardening issue #127

Striking, extra-large yellow blooms cover each stem from base to tip in early spring.

These shrubs are beautiful, compact, and easy to grow, making them obvious choices for mixed borders, foundation plantings, and naturalizing. The fragrant, bottlebrush flowers are petalless and sweetly-scented.

(1 user review)

Fragrant, cylindrical inflorescences are made up of long, white filaments, and open before the leaves in spring. In autumn, the foliage shades range from blood red to blazing yellow, and every shade in between.