Browse Plants

(1 user review)

A large ornamental okra with dinner-plate-sized, sulfur yellow flowers with dark eyes. Each flower lasts only a day—unfolding slowly in the morning and closing gradually in the evening—but the abundance of flowers open on any one day conceals their short life span.

This amazing baptisia is a cross between B. australis, the most common blue variety, and B. sphaerocarpa, a plant with yellow bloomer. The result is pea-like violet-purple flowers with dramatic yellow keels. It is long-lived, tough, and drought resistant, but it may take three or four gardening seasons to establish itself. Twilite Prairieblues™ blooms in late spring or early summer, When not in bloom, the plant remains attractive because of the lovely blue-green color of its trifoliate leaves, especially in spring. This plant is tall and will look good at the back of a border. -Stephanie Cohen, Plants to know and grow, Fine Gardening issue #120

(3 user reviews)

These plants can take worst of the a hot summer (heat, lack of water, and humidity) and still manage to perform well. They generally live four to five years before they need replacing, but during that time, they offer dependable foliage and pretty blue flowers from mid- to late summer. Blue-mist shrubs form low-growing, finely-textured mounds and are deer-resistant.

(1 user review)

'Longwood Blue' is ideal for a mixed or shrub border. It's an attractive woody shrub up to 3 feet tall and 5 feet wide with silvery leaves and violet-blue flowers.. The flowers appear along the stems in late summer and early autumn.This plant is relatively drought tolerant and very heat tolerant. The shrub expands as branches that touch the ground form their own roots and may self-seed.

Mountain sweet is a low-growing, broad, compact, deciduous shrub. Dark-green leaves are irregularly toothed, 2 to 3 inches long, and softly hairy or nearly hairless beneath. This plant bears profuse white flowers in 1- to 2-inch-long terminal clusters.

(1 user review)

A wonderful hybrid derived from Cestrum diurnum and C. nocturnum, 'Orange Peel' is a veritable living bouquet of pure orange blossoms that, in warmer climates, begin with the first mild days in spring and last until the first hard frost. The tubular flowers have no fragrance during the day, but as soon as the sun sets, a sweet scent lingers in the air. In Zones 8 and warmer, 'Orange Peel' will be a deciduous shrub 6 feet tall and wide. In Zone 7, it will act as a die-back perennial and easily reach 3 to 5 feet tall and wide during the growing season. In colder zones, it makes an incredible summer-blooming annual.

'Coffee Cups' is an unusual and relatively recent introduction. It has nearly black stems and  cup-shaped leaves. 'Coffee Cups' is a vigorous grower, and, with a height of 6 feet, it's a good choice for the back part of a border. -Andy Cabe, Regional Picks: Southeast, Fine Gardening issue #120

(3 user reviews)

This stunning grass has 1- to 3-foot-long, densely tufted plumes atop tall, upright stalks and arching mid-green leaves. Plumes come in white, cream, or beige-pink and appear in late summer.

This clumping, drought-tolerant grass is one of the best pampas grasses you could grow. It has the showy, late-summer plumes common to this group, but they grow straight up, not willy-nilly like many other varieties; they eventually stand 4 to 6 feet above the foliage. Even better news is that this cultivar does not set seed, so it is noninvasive. The foliage features distinct golden edges, which, for a grass, usually menas that it loves shade or moisture. But 'Gold Band' tolerates heat and drought, making it great for large containers, and it can handle coastal conditions, too.

(1 user review)

This dwarf cultivar has mid-green leaves and densely tufted plumes atop tall, upright stalks and arching mid-green leaves. Masses of silvery yellow plumes appear in late summer.

Scotch broom is an upright, deciduous shrub with slender, arching shoots. In late spring, it produces abundant yellow flowers in axillary clusters.

(1 user review)

This upright, evergreen shrub has stunning texture and form. Its gray-green leaves and woolly, purple-tinged stems form billowy, 4-foot long branches. From early spring to early summer, it produces giant cylindrical bract clusters in yellow-green with purple-black nectar glands, and creates a specimen that looks otherworldly.

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

A profusion of golden yellow flowers appears for two to three weeks starting in early autumn. Daisy-like flowerheads are 3 inches across with 15 to 20 yellow ray florets radiating from a flat-topped purple or dark brown cone. The entire plant looks like a giant flame, drawing the attention of gardeners and many species of butterflies, bees, and other nectar feeders.

(1 user review)

A clump-forming succulent, red yucca has arching, leathery, linear foliage rising to between 2 and 3 feet tall. Dark olive-green leaves with no thorns or spines are sparsely covered with fibrous strands along the margins. Deep coral pink flowers with golden yellow throats crowd the length of the stalks that reach three feet or more. Foliage has a reddish bronze hue during winter's chill for year-round interest.

(2 user reviews)

This hardy, deciduous, vase-shaped, woody shrub blooms for several weeks beginning in midsummer. Cultivars include ‘Aphrodite’ (deep rose-pink flowers with  a dark red eye), ‘Diana’ (large white flowers with wavy-margined petals), ‘Helene’ (white flowers with bases flushed reddish purple), and ‘Minerva' (low-branched with  lavender flowers tinged with pink and dark red centers).

This compact shrub was bred by the noted horticulturist, Dr. Michael Dirr. It was selected not only for its small stature but also for its excellent disease resistance and standout flower color.

Silver leaf is a flowering evergreen shrub with arching branches and woolly, silvery gray leaves. In summer, it bears solitary, bell-shaped rose-purple flowers an inch across.

(2 user reviews)

Honey bush has attractive, 12- to 20-inch-long pinnate leaves with sharply toothed silver-green leaflets. It bears spike-like racemes of oddly scented brownish crimson to brick-red flowers from late spring to midsummer.