Browse Plants

This 3-foot-tall, small-flowered perennial glad was originally collected from an abandoned home site in North Carolina. Pure yellow with a wildflowery grace, it seems to be a form of a wild South African glad introduced about 1900 as Gladiolus primulinus.

Introduced in 1940, 'Dauntless' grows to 4 feet tall and has pale pink flowers with deep pink/red throats.

This 3- to 4-foot-tall glad has luminous deep purplish-rose flowers. It dates from 1959 and is called 'Fidelio' after Beethoven's joyous opera.

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Honey locust grows in the wild from Pennsylvania to Iowa and south to Georgia and Texas. In the landscape, this large, spreading, deciduous tree is valuable for its elegant form and pinnate, ferny leaves that cast a dappled shade. Flowers are generally inconspicuous, but are followed by unusual large seed pods. Fall color can be a nice yellow, but leaves sometimes fall without noticeably changing colors. The species has a thorny trunk and shoots, but thornless cultivars are available.

A bushy, hairy-leaved annual, globe amaranth bears round purple flower bracts on thick stems in summer and early fall. This plant is useful as summer bedding or in a border or cutting garden. It is fairly drought tolerant and very heat tolerant. It grows to about 2 feet tall.

An upright, bushy annual with flowers (actually bracts) that resemble bright red strawberries with tiny yellow "seeds." Flowers are produced from summer to early fall and are great for cutting and drying. Leaves are hairy. Gomphrena is fairly drought tolerant and very heat tolerant. Use as bedding, in a border, or in a cut flower garden.

This native terrestrial orchid produces basal rosettes of striking silvery-veined evergreen foliage. Small white flowers are borne on single slender stems about 6 to 10 inches tall in late summer.

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This stunning shrub blooms all year in some climates. A fast grower, its large, moonlight-colored flowers and finely divided, gray foliage are a must for any southern-temperate garden. Frost and drought tolerant once established, it attracts bees and hummingbirds and makes an excellent screening shrub.

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This is the granddaddy of big-leaved perennials. No other plant can so thoroughly alter the scale of a garden while calling such attention to itself.

Pale pink flowers pop up suddenly after a summer rainstorm and resemble small amaryllis flowers on this native of Brazil. In the proper conditions, they can multiply rapidly and carpet the garden.

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Brightly variegated golden foliage with green stripes near the leaf margins give this Japanese forest grass its distinctive look. Too much shade can cause the golden portion to fade to lime green. This slow-growing may not reach a mature size for three years, but it is definitely worth the wait. -Matt Griswold, Regional Picks: Northeast, Fine Gardening issue #127

(1 user review)

Carolina silverbell is a handsome tree with clean green foliage and an upright spreading habit. In mid- or late spring, hundreds of silvery-white bell-shaped flowers dangle from every branch before foliage emerges. The tree also has attractive bark, unusual four-winged seedpods, and yellow fall color.

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A tropical tree by design, the Mexican fire bush freezes to the ground in winter in Zones 8-11, but grows up to 5 feet tall by summer's end. The erect, branched, woody stems bear simple copper-toned leaves with small orange flowers bunched along the tips. It loves the heat, and the more you can give it, the more vigorous it will be.

Sneezeweed is a clump-forming perennial with sturdy, branching stems and mid-green leaves. In August and September, masses of 2-inch, daisy-like yellow flowers are borne in large, loose terminal clusters on leafy 4- to 5-foot tall stems.

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Sunflowers are some of the easiest plants to start from seed. They are available in numerous cultivars which span the range of heights, flower colors, and form.

These branching plants with thick stems and glossy mid-green leaves grow 5 to 6 feet tall. Slightly nodding flowerheads 2.5 inches or more across appear in summer. Bright yellow ray florets are sometimes flushed with red or purple-red disk florets.

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Sawtooth sunflower's abundant yellow daisy flowers bloom from late summer well into fall. The dark green, narrow leaves have a leathery gloss. A well-behaved plant, sawtooth sunflower forms a thick, slowly expanding clump. It can reach 10 feet and taller, depending on conditions.

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Dramatic powder blue foliage and spiky architecture are hallmarks of this plant. The leaves resemble rigid, tapering pieces of steel blue linguine collected in a porcupine-like dome.

This clump-forming perennial bears striking, sunflower-like yellow blooms on long stalks from midsummer to early autumn.