Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Geranium
The familiar bedding "geranium" is actually a Pelargonium, a drought-tolerant flowering plant with rounded leaves and bold clusters of red, pink, or white blooms. True Geranium species (cranesbills) are separate hardy perennials.
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Million Bells
A trailing relative of the petunia, million bells smothers itself in small bell-shaped flowers all season and needs no deadheading.
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Masterwort
Masterwort is a clump-forming perennial with intricate, pincushion-like flower heads surrounded by a papery collar of petal-like bracts. It brings cottage-garden charm to moist, partly shaded borders.
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Gaura
Gaura is an airy, long-blooming perennial whose delicate pink or white flowers dance on slender, wiry stems like a cloud of butterflies. It is heat- and drought-tolerant and blooms for months.
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Love-in-a-Mist
A delicate cottage-garden annual whose blue, white or pink flowers nestle in a misty halo of thread-like foliage, followed by ornamental inflated seed pods. Both the airy blooms and the balloon-like pods are prized for fresh and dried arrangements.
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Foxglove
Foxglove is a stately biennial bearing tall spires of tubular, spotted bell-flowers, beloved by bees and a striking accent in shade and cottage gardens.
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Forget-Me-Not
Forget-me-not is a low, spreading plant covered in tiny sky-blue flowers with yellow centers, beloved for carpeting spring gardens and self-seeding freely.
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Lupine
A striking cottage-garden perennial with tall, dense spires of pea-like flowers in vivid blues, purples, pinks, and bicolors above palmate leaves. A nitrogen-fixing legume beloved by bees.
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Fireweed
A tall, magenta-flowered perennial famous for blanketing burned and disturbed land, which gives it its name. Its spires of pink-purple flowers make it both a pioneer species and a showy garden plant.
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Lungwort
Lungwort is a shade-loving perennial grown for its silver-spotted leaves and early spring flowers that often open pink and age to blue on the same plant. It is an excellent groundcover for woodland and shady gardens.
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Fan Flower
An Australian trailing plant grown for its unusual fan-shaped flowers, with five petals all spread to one side like a tiny hand. Heat- and drought-tolerant, it blooms nonstop in blue, purple, pink or white, ideal for baskets and containers.
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Flowering Kale
Flowering kale is a cool-season ornamental grown for its showy rosettes of frilly leaves in pink, purple, white, and cream. The color intensifies in cold weather, making it a star of fall and winter displays.
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Gladiolus
Gladiolus is a tall summer bulb that sends up dramatic spikes of funnel-shaped flowers in nearly every color, a staple of cutting gardens and floral arrangements.
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Globe Thistle
Globe thistle is a bold, architectural perennial topped with spherical, steel-blue flower heads above spiny, gray-green foliage. It is drought-tolerant and irresistible to bees.
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Flowering Tobacco
An ornamental relative of commercial tobacco grown for its tubular, star-shaped flowers that open and release a jasmine-like scent in the evening. It comes in white, green, red and pink, attracting moths and hummingbirds.
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Larkspur
A cool-season annual related to delphinium, bearing tall spikes of spurred blue, purple, pink or white flowers above feathery foliage. It is a cottage-garden classic and an excellent cut flower.
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Foamflower
Foamflower is a charming native woodland perennial with maple-like, often patterned leaves and frothy spikes of tiny, star-shaped white or pink flowers in spring. It forms a delicate groundcover for shady gardens.
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Floss Flower
Floss flower is a compact annual covered in fluffy, thread-like clusters of blue, lavender, pink, or white blooms that flower nonstop all summer.
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Lily of the Valley
A low, spreading shade groundcover with arching sprays of tiny, intensely fragrant white bells in spring. Beautiful and beloved, with broad glossy leaves rising from creeping rhizomes.
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False Sunflower
False sunflower is a tough native perennial covered in golden-yellow daisy-like blooms all summer. It resembles a true sunflower but returns reliably year after year.
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Liatris
Liatris, also called blazing star or gayfeather, is a native prairie perennial with tall, fuzzy spikes of purple-pink flowers that uniquely open from the top down. A pollinator favorite, it adds vertical drama and butterfly traffic to sunny gardens.
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False Indigo
A long-lived, shrubby perennial legume with spires of indigo-blue, lupine-like flowers in late spring and attractive blue-green foliage all season.
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English Daisy
The English daisy is a low, cheerful perennial with white-to-pink petaled flowers around a yellow center, beloved in cottage gardens and famous as the daisy of lawns and daisy-chains.
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Iris
Irises are elegant perennials with sword-like leaves and intricate flowers featuring upright "standards" and drooping "falls." The bearded iris is the most widely grown garden type.
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Dutchman's Breeches
A delicate spring ephemeral whose white, pantaloon-shaped flowers hang in a row like tiny upside-down breeches. It blooms early in woodlands then vanishes by summer.
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Dianthus
Dianthus, commonly called pinks or carnations, are flowering plants known for their fringed, clove-scented blooms in shades of pink, red, white and bicolor. They are classic cottage-garden favorites that bloom prolifically in cool weather.
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Diascia
Diascia, or twinspur, is a low, free-flowering plant covered in delicate coral, pink, or apricot blooms. It is a popular cool-season filler for containers, baskets, and edging.
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Jack-in-the-Pulpit
An unusual woodland perennial named for its hooded flower structure resembling a preacher (Jack) standing in a canopied pulpit. It can change sex from year to year and produces a cluster of bright red berries in fall.
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Daisy
The classic low-growing daisy with white petals and a yellow center, often seen dotting lawns and meadows. Cheerful, hardy, and easy to grow.
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Jewelweed
A native North American annual with dangling orange spotted flowers and seed pods that burst open at a touch. Jewelweed forms colonies in moist, shady habitats.
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Delphinium
Delphiniums are stately cottage-garden perennials famed for their towering spires of intensely blue (or purple, pink, and white) flowers. Their dramatic vertical form makes them a classic centerpiece of the summer border.
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Culver's Root
Culver's root is a tall, elegant North American prairie perennial with whorled leaves and slender, candelabra-like spires of white to pale-lilac flowers. It is a magnet for bees and butterflies in summer.
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Harebell
A delicate, wiry perennial bearing nodding blue bell-shaped flowers on thread-like stems. Found across the Northern Hemisphere, it is famed as the bluebell of Scotland.
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Dahlia
A tuberous flower prized for spectacular, intricate blooms ranging from small pompoms to dinner-plate giants. Dahlias bloom from summer to frost in a huge color range.
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Cup Plant
A towering North American prairie perennial whose paired leaves fuse around the square stem to form water-holding cups beneath bright yellow daisy flowers.
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Cypress Vine
A delicate, fast-growing morning-glory relative with lacy, fern-like foliage and small star-shaped red, pink or white flowers that hummingbirds love. It quickly climbs trellises and fences with feathery, airy growth.
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Clarkia
A graceful western North American annual bearing satiny, cup-shaped flowers in pink, lavender, and salmon, beloved for cool-season color and as a cut flower.
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Hyacinth
Hyacinth is a spring bulb that produces dense, upright spikes of waxy, star-shaped flowers in vivid colors, prized for their powerful sweet fragrance.
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Impatiens
Impatiens are shade-loving annuals that smother themselves in flat, colorful flowers all summer, thriving where few other bedding plants will bloom. Their name refers to seed pods that burst open at a touch.
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Corn Poppy
An annual wildflower famed for its papery, blood-red blooms that carpet European fields and serve as the international symbol of wartime remembrance.
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Cup and Saucer Vine
Cup and saucer vine is a vigorous climbing plant grown for its large bell-shaped flowers that open green and age to deep purple. It can scramble 15-20 feet in a single season using grasping tendrils.
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Creeping Zinnia
Creeping zinnia is a low, spreading annual smothered in tiny gold-and-black daisy flowers that resemble miniature sunflowers. It is heat- and drought-tolerant, making it ideal for edging, baskets, and groundcover.
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Indian Paintbrush
A vivid North American wildflower whose flame-colored display comes not from petals but from brightly tipped leaf-like bracts. It is a hemiparasite that taps the roots of neighboring plants, making it notoriously difficult to cultivate.
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Cosmos
Cosmos is a fast, easygoing annual with daisy-like flowers and feathery foliage that blooms profusely all summer and attracts pollinators.
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Coneflower
A rugged North American prairie perennial with daisy-like purple-pink petals around a spiny, copper-orange central cone. Beloved by pollinators and goldfinches.
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Coral Bells
A versatile mounding perennial grown chiefly for vivid foliage in shades of purple, amber, lime, and silver, accented by airy sprays of tiny bell-shaped flowers. A modern shade-garden favorite.
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Coreopsis
Coreopsis, or tickseed, is a cheerful, sun-loving plant smothered in daisy-like flowers, usually golden yellow, from early summer to fall. It's tough, drought-tolerant and a magnet for pollinators.
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Hollyhock
Hollyhock is a towering cottage-garden biennial bearing tall spires of large, saucer-shaped flowers. Its dramatic height makes it a classic backdrop for fences and walls.
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