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.
Pachysandra carpets deep shade where grass fails, but Japanese spurge spreads invasively. Learn planting, watering, shearing, blight control, and the Allegheny spurge option.
A fir tree gives you evergreen color all year, but only if you pick the right species. Learn how to identify, choose, plant, and care for fir trees.
The calendula flower (pot marigold) is a cool-season annual with edible orange and yellow petals. Learn to grow, deadhead, and harvest it.
Italian cypress brings tall, narrow Mediterranean drama to any yard, but only with full sun and sharp drainage. Learn to plant, space, water, and protect it.
Weeping cherry tree care starts with knowing it is grafted: plant in full sun and well-drained soil, water young trees well, and prune to protect the graft.
Spiderwort can flop and self-sow if you misjudge it. Learn how to grow this easygoing native perennial, from light and soil to dividing and cutting back.
Pink muhly grass dazzles in fall, but a green plant that never turns pink is a common letdown. Learn the sun, soil, and timing that earn the rosy cloud.
Summer flowers keep a garden colorful right through the heat. Discover the best heat-loving annuals, perennials, and bulbs for nonstop summer bloom.
Indian paintbrush dazzles in the wild but defeats most gardeners because it is hemiparasitic. Learn how to grow Castilleja from seed with a host plant.
Ligustrum, the fast-growing privet, builds a dense hedge in a few seasons. Learn which species to plant, how to space and prune them, and which turn invasive.
Plumbago rewards full sun and sharp drainage with sky-blue summer flowers. Learn to plant, prune, train, and overwinter this easygoing shrub.
The chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus) brings blue-purple summer spikes and pollinators to hot, dry gardens. Learn to plant, prune, train, and care for vitex.