Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Speedwell
Speedwell is a hardy perennial prized for its upright spikes of densely packed blue, purple, pink or white flowers that bloom for weeks in summer. It is a magnet for bees and butterflies and thrives in sunny, well-drained borders.
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Turtlehead
Turtlehead is a moisture-loving native perennial whose hooded, two-lipped flowers resemble a turtle's head. It blooms in late summer and thrives in wet, partly shaded gardens.
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Wild Violet
Wild violet is a low-growing perennial wildflower with heart-shaped leaves and five-petaled blue-purple blooms, beloved by some and considered a stubborn lawn weed by others.
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Twinflower
A delicate, mat-forming evergreen subshrub of northern forests bearing nodding pairs of fragrant, bell-shaped pink flowers; the namesake of botanist Linnaeus.
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Wild Ginger
A low, spreading woodland groundcover with heart-shaped leaves and curious maroon flowers hidden at soil level. Its ginger-scented roots inspired the common name, though it is unrelated to true ginger.
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Tulip
A spring-flowering bulb cherished for its goblet-shaped blooms in nearly every color. Tulips are planted in autumn and naturalize best in regions with cold winters.
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Wild Indigo
A long-lived native prairie perennial that forms a shrub-like mound of blue-green foliage topped by spikes of indigo-blue, pea-like flowers. Its deep taproot makes it exceptionally drought tolerant and nearly permanent in the garden.
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Zinnia
Zinnias are fast-growing, heat-loving annuals that produce bold, daisy-like flowers in vivid colors all summer. They are easy from seed, beloved by pollinators, and excellent cut flowers.
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Verbena
Verbenas are sun-loving plants that produce dense clusters of small, vivid flowers over long seasons, attracting butterflies and bees. They range from low spreading bedding types to tall airy border perennials.
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Wild Geranium
A graceful woodland perennial bearing saucer-shaped pink to lavender flowers above deeply lobed leaves in late spring. It is a true hardy geranium, distinct from the tender garden 'geraniums' that are actually pelargoniums.
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Tickseed
A cheerful, sun-loving daisy-family wildflower bearing masses of golden-yellow blooms over a long summer season, beloved for its toughness and pollinator appeal.
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Toadshade
Toadshade is a woodland trillium with mottled leaves and a stalkless, maroon, upright flower that never fully opens. It is a charming spring ephemeral of eastern North American forests.
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Stokes' Aster
Stokes' aster is a clump-forming perennial bearing large, frilly, cornflower-like blooms in blue, purple, white, or pink atop neat evergreen foliage. It is a long-blooming, heat-tolerant native of the southeastern US.
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Siberian Bugloss
Siberian bugloss is a shade perennial grown for its large, heart-shaped leaves, often silvered, and sprays of dainty blue flowers resembling forget-me-nots in spring. It is a workhorse for woodland gardens.
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Trout Lily
A delicate spring ephemeral named for its mottled, trout-patterned leaves and nodding yellow lily flowers. It forms vast, slow-spreading woodland colonies that can be over a century old.
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Sunflower
A fast-growing annual famous for its large golden flower heads that track the sun while young. Native to North America, it is grown for ornament and as a cut flower.
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Scarlet Sage
A bold bedding salvia famous for its dense spikes of fiery red tubular flowers, a magnet for hummingbirds and a mainstay of summer color schemes.
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Statice
Statice is a sun-loving plant grown for its papery, long-lasting flower clusters in vivid colors. Exceptionally good for drying, it's a favorite for everlasting bouquets and seaside gardens.
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Rose Mallow
A vigorous perennial hibiscus native to North American wetlands, famous for its enormous dinner-plate-sized blooms in white, pink, or red with a contrasting eye.
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Swan River Daisy
Swan River daisy is a dainty Australian annual that forms low mounds covered in masses of small blue, violet, pink, or white daisies. It is a popular, free-flowering choice for containers, baskets, and edging.
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Spiderwort
Spiderwort is a clumping native perennial with grassy arching foliage and three-petaled blue, purple, or pink flowers that each last a single day. It blooms reliably from late spring through summer.
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Snakeroot
Snakeroot, also called black cohosh, is a tall woodland perennial bearing dramatic white bottlebrush spires of fragrant flowers above ferny foliage. It is a striking native for moist, shady gardens.
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Shooting Star
A spring-blooming North American wildflower whose swept-back petals and pointed, downward-facing flowers resemble tiny shooting stars or shuttlecocks. It goes dormant by midsummer.
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Wishbone Flower
Wishbone flower is a charming shade-loving annual with trumpet-shaped, two-toned blooms named for the wishbone-shaped stamens hidden inside each flower.
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Sea Thrift
Sea thrift is a compact, evergreen coastal perennial forming tidy cushions of grassy foliage topped with round pink pompom flowers. It is exceptionally tough, thriving in poor, salty, well-drained soils.
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Sea Holly
Sea holly is a striking, drought-tolerant perennial with spiny, thistle-like flower heads surrounded by metallic silver-blue bracts. It thrives in poor, dry soils and adds architectural texture and a long-lasting, otherworldly color to sunny borders.
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Texas Bluebonnet
The Texas bluebonnet is the iconic state flower of Texas, a spring-blooming wildflower lupine that carpets roadsides and fields in sweeps of deep blue with white-tipped flower spikes.
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Showy Lady's Slipper
Showy Lady's Slipper is a large, slow-growing native orchid prized for its inflated white pouch flushed with rose-pink. It is the state flower of Minnesota and one of the most spectacular wild orchids of North America.
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Vinca
A heat- and drought-tolerant annual with glossy leaves and pinwheel flowers, annual vinca blooms nonstop through the hottest part of summer.
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Trillium
A cherished woodland wildflower built entirely in threes: three leaves, three petals, and three sepals. Slow-growing and long-lived, it is a hallmark of healthy spring forests and should never be picked or dug from the wild.
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Wood Anemone
A low-growing spring ephemeral of European woodlands that carpets the forest floor with star-shaped white flowers before the tree canopy leafs out.
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Toad Lily
Toad lily is a shade perennial bearing exotic, orchid-like flowers heavily speckled with purple in late summer and fall. Its intricate blooms reward a close look in the woodland garden.
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Queen Anne's Lace
Queen Anne's lace is a biennial wildflower with delicate, flat-topped clusters of tiny white flowers and a single dark floret in the center. It is the wild ancestor of the cultivated carrot.
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Virginia Bluebells
A beloved spring ephemeral whose pink buds open into clusters of nodding, sky-blue trumpet flowers. It blooms in woodland shade then dies back by summer, vanishing until the next spring.
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Sweet Pea
Sweet pea is a climbing annual cherished for its ruffled, intensely fragrant flowers in soft pastel shades, a classic of cottage gardens and cut-flower beds.
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Poppy
The poppy is a delicate-petaled wildflower, most iconic in its scarlet form, that blooms in sunny meadows and has become a symbol of remembrance.
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Wild Columbine
Wild columbine is a graceful native woodland wildflower with nodding red-and-yellow flowers whose backward-pointing spurs hold nectar prized by hummingbirds.
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Strawflower
An Australian annual prized for its papery, daisy-like bracts that keep their bright color long after cutting, making it a favorite for dried-flower arrangements. The crisp, straw-textured petals come in gold, orange, red, pink and white.
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Primrose
Primroses are low, clump-forming perennials that bring some of the earliest color to spring with their soft pastel flowers above rosettes of crinkled leaves. They thrive in cool, moist, partly shaded spots.
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Sweet William
Sweet William is a short-lived cottage-garden classic bearing dense, flat clusters of fringed, often bicolored flowers with a clove-like fragrance. It's typically grown as a biennial, blooming in its second year.
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Pickerelweed
A native aquatic perennial of pond margins and marshes, bearing glossy heart-shaped leaves and spikes of violet-blue flowers all summer long.
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Sneezeweed
Sneezeweed is a cheerful late-summer perennial bearing masses of daisy-like flowers with raised central cones in warm shades of yellow, orange, red and bronze. Despite its name, it doesn't cause sneezing from pollen; the name comes from old use of its dried leaves as snuff.
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Spring Beauty
A tiny spring ephemeral carpeting woodlands and lawns with starry white-to-pink flowers delicately striped in darker pink.
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Sweet Alyssum
A low, spreading annual smothered in tiny honey-scented flowers, sweet alyssum is a classic edging and container filler that blooms from spring through frost.
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Swamp Milkweed
A moisture-loving native milkweed bearing fragrant clusters of pink flowers, a vital host plant for monarch butterflies and a magnet for pollinators.
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Peony
A long-lived perennial famous for huge, often fragrant late-spring blooms in shades of pink, white, and red. Peonies are tough, cold-loving, and can thrive for decades.
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Snapdragon
Snapdragons are cool-season flowers with tall spikes of colorful, two-lipped blooms that "snap" open when squeezed. They are popular bedding plants and excellent cut flowers.
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Shasta Daisy
The classic cheerful garden daisy: crisp white petals around a sunny yellow eye, blooming abundantly all summer. Reliable, long-lasting, and a top-tier cut flower.
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