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An iris with foliage as showy as its flowers, 'Variegata' has bright green leaves striped with yellow and beautiful soft blue flowers with yellow beards. This bearded iris reaches four feet high and spreads indefinitely. Use to edge a border or grow at waterside.  

(1 user review)

Yellow flag is a vigorous Laevigata iris with ribbed, sword-shaped gray-green leaves. It grows to 3 to 4 feet high. Over 60 cultivars exist, including ‘Beuron’, with evenly yellow flowers; ‘Ecru’, with its off-white blooms; ‘Fresh Cream’, with lovely, pale-yellow flowers marked with red-violet signals; a variegated type, ‘Variegata’; ‘Donau’, a bright-yellow flower adorned with a brown signal that looks like stitchery; and nearly sterile ‘Holden Clough’, with deep-yellow blooms and reddish purple veining.

(1 user review)

Attractive, grass-like leaves to 18 inches long are topped by showy flowers in a wide range of colors. Flowers unfurl in May and bloom well into June. Cultivars include ‘Caesar’s Brother’, with rich purple flowers; ‘Eric the Red’, a bright violet-pink Siberian; and ‘Chilled Wine’, a garnet iris suffused with blue.

This beardless iris is one of the tallest growing. It is available in a wide range of flower colors and blooms from late spring to mid-summer. These irises are tall like Japanese irises but have upright flowers and bloom later than the tall bearded ones.

Lavender-pink or white flowers up to 4 inches in diameter have purple veins and yellow throats. Sword-shaped medium green leaves can top 6 feet tall when grown in shallow water.

This eye-catching sedge has silvery flower heads on the ends of its stems, making it appear like a tuft of fiber optic threads. It needs moist or wet soil and grows to about a foot tall and wide. Use it at waterside or in a container.

'Henry's Garnet' Virginia sweetspire is a very dependable, showy plant. It is an arching, 3- to 5-foot-tall shrub that holds its leaves well into fall, allowing the maroon, yellow, and orange tones to develop and reveal themselves over time. Virginia sweetspire also produces an early-summer show, featuring slender, drooping racemes of white flowers that attract all sorts of pollinating insects. Its suckering, slowly spreading, 6-foot-wide habit makes it a good choice for slopes and mass plantings.

Like the popular 'Henry's Garnet' Virginia sweetspire, Little Henry® has mildly fragrant white blooms in summer and red to orange leaf color in fall, but grows to just 2 to 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide. Use it in massed plantings, mixed borders, and containers. -Allan Armitage, Plants to know and grow, Fine Gardening issue #121

This slender, deciduous shrub has arching green shoots and dark green leaves divided into three oval-oblong leaflets. Solitary bright yellow flowers borne on leaf axils appear before the leaves in winter and early spring. They do not have the jasmine fragrance.

This evergreen shrub has a low, spreading habit and attractive, two-toned foliage. The pendulous foliage tips are frosted with gold on the upper surface and blue-green foliage on the underside. 'Daub's Frosted' reaches 15 inches tall by 5 feet wide at maturity. Dark purple fruit becomes paler later.

This evergreen shrub has rich, bright-green fine-textured foliage in summer. The compact habit is fountain-like, as its branches arch at a 60° angle out from its base. Reaches a mature size of 4 to 5 feet tall and 6 to 8 feet wide.

This is a slow-growing evergreen shrub with a formal appearance, with its narrow, columnar form and outstanding gray-green foliage. It grows to 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide at maturity. Its growth remains dense as it matures. Silvery-blue, waxy berries are highly decorative.

'Shoosmith'  is an evergreen shrub with a broad spreading habit, reaching 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide at maturity. Light-green juvenile foliage and rich dark-green adult foliage on the same plant creates a two-toned effect.

This creeping shrub has a prostrate form and dense, steely blue foliage. The mature height is 1 foot tall. Scale-like green leaves turn a dull purple in winter. Blue rug juniper creates a flat ground cover. It grows 6 to 12 inches per year and bears ovoid dark blue fruit.

This spreading, low-growing shrub has attractive bluish-green foliage and unusual upturned branches that create the appearance of a miniature blue forest. The mature size is 10 inches tall, with a spread that can reach 4 feet wide.

'Blue Star' jumiper is a slow-growing, compact, evergreen shrub with a mounding shape. Its silver blue foliage is attractive in all seasons, and its blue, berry-like, female cones each contain one seed, hence its common name.

'Holger' is a prostrate shrub with a semi-spreading form and narrow pointed leaves. Young growth emerges a soft sulfur-yellow, contrasting with steel-blue mature leaves. This plant bears glossy black fruit.

This upright bushy perennial has softly hairy, mid-green lower leaves to 3 inches long and lance-shaped upper leaves to 1 inch long. White, double flowers, resembling chrysanthemums, bloom almost constantly from spring to fall. Kalimeris is closely related to Boltonia.

Beautiful variegation brightens the green and grey mottled foliage. A wide creamy-golden margin blends to the edge of the cut-leaf foliage. Its spreading branches mingle softly with its garden neighbors. Blooming in early fall, 12-  to 15-inch stems produce light lavender aster-like flowers with a yellow center.