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.
Rose of Sharon care is easy once you nail a few things. Learn how to plant, water, prune, and propagate this hardy hibiscus for nonstop summer-to-fall blooms.
Rock rose is the carefree, drought-tolerant shrub for the hot, dry corner where nothing else grows. Learn how to plant, water, prune, and troubleshoot Cistus.
Rose mallow is a hardy, North American hibiscus with dinner-plate flowers. Learn how to plant, water, prune, and overwinter it for blooms every year.
Redbud is the small native tree that blooms magenta-pink right on bare branches every spring. Learn how to plant, water, prune, and protect it from canker.
A redwood tree is really three species, and only one suits most yards. Compare coast redwood, giant sequoia, and dawn redwood, plus zones, planting, and care.
Rhododendron care comes down to two essentials: acidic, free-draining soil and shallow planting. Add dappled shade and these spring shrubs bloom for decades.
A red maple tree will grow almost anywhere, but a few details decide whether you get reliable scarlet fall color and roots that stay out of your sidewalk.
Red roses reward the right choice: match the variety to your goal, cut flowers, mass color, climbing, or low care, plus why reds run deepest in cool weather.
Red twig dogwood gives you blazing winter stems for little effort, but only if you prune it right. Learn how to plant it and keep the color vivid.
Queen Anne’s lace looks harmless, but it has deadly lookalikes. Learn to identify wild carrot, tell it from poison hemlock, and grow it safely.
Primrose seems like a one-season throwaway, but give these early bloomers the cool, moist, shaded spot they crave and most return and multiply each year.
A ponderosa pine is drought-tough and fragrant, but this western yellow pine reaches 60-100 ft with a deep taproot. Learn how to identify, site, and grow it.