From annuals and perennials to flowering trees and shrubs, this is where your garden gets its color. Browse planting guides, bloom-time tips, and care advice for the ornamental plants that give a yard its structure, fragrance, and year-round interest.
Unsure how to grow the mullein plant or curb its seeding? Grow common mullein and ornamental Verbascum in full sun and lean soil, from seed to seed control.
Rowan tree, the cool-climate mountain ash, brings white spring flowers, blazing fall color, and bird-loved berries to small gardens in zones 3 to 7.
Spicebush is a tough native shrub for shady, damp corners, giving early yellow flowers, swallowtail caterpillars, red bird berries, and golden fall color.
A tulip tree grows fast into a towering native shade tree, but its size and soft wood make site choice everything. Learn where to plant, water, and prune it.
Pussy willow gives you soft silver catkins every spring. Learn to plant, water, hard-prune for the best stems, dry the catkins, and root cuttings in water.
Sedge (Carex) is a grass-like ornamental that thrives where turf fails, from dry shade to soggy rain gardens. Learn the best native and cultivar types, how to plant and space them, the spring comb-out, and how to tell ornamental sedge from weedy nutsedge.
Jack in the pulpit is an odd native shade wildflower that fails in dry sun. Learn to grow it from corms or seed and handle its toxic red berries.
Safflower thrives on heat and dry soil, rewarding you with spiny orange blooms, oil-rich seeds, and natural dye. Learn to grow this tough annual from seed.
Lungwort brings early pink-to-blue flowers and silver-spotted foliage to deep shade. Learn to plant, water, cut back, and divide this easy zone 3-8 perennial.
Texas sage is a tough, drought-loving shrub that flushes purple blooms after rain, but it dies fast from overwatering. Here is how to grow it right.
Growing a healthy rose bush comes down to sun, well-drained soil, the right planting depth, deep watering, seasonal feeding, and a clean yearly prune.
Lenten rose blooms in late winter when the shade garden is still bare, an evergreen, deer-resistant perennial that returns for decades with little fuss.