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.
A wisteria tree is really a vigorous woody vine trained into a standard. Learn to choose the species, stake and train it, prune twice a year, and get blooms.
Yaupon holly is a tough native evergreen that takes drought, salt and shade, feeds birds with red berries, shears into hedges and brews into caffeinated tea.
The weeping willow tree dazzles by water but is a liability near homes. Learn its fast growth, invasive roots, brittle wood, care, and whether to plant one.
White flowers brighten shade, cool hot borders, and glow at dusk. This guide sorts the best by plant type, sun or shade, and bloom season with growing notes.
Viburnum rewards you with fragrant flowers, fall color, and berries, but only if you nail the sun, the pruning timing, and a pollination partner.
The violet flower charms gardeners yet baffles them – is it a weed, a wild edible, or the African violet houseplant? Learn to grow, eat, and ID true violets.
Trumpet vine rewards you with hummingbird-luring orange trumpets, but it suckers and seeds itself fast. Learn to grow, bloom, prune, and keep it in bounds.
Tiger lily bulbs rot in wet soil and the plant is toxic to cats. Learn how to plant, water, feed, propagate, and safely contain this bold spotted lily.
Sweet alyssum often quits blooming by midsummer. Learn the right planting time, how to grow it from seed, and the shear that keeps it flowering until frost.
The sweet pea flower is loved for its honey-orange scent, but it quits blooming the moment it overheats or sets seed. Here is how to grow, feed, and pick it.
The stock flower brings clove-sweet perfume to spring beds but stalls in heat. Here is how to grow it from seed to vase, and why yours won’t bloom.
Spirea is a hardy, low-maintenance flowering shrub for full sun. Learn how to plant, prune by bloom season, and pick non-invasive or native types.