Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Sitka Spruce
Sitka Spruce is the largest spruce in the world, a towering conifer of the cool, wet Pacific Northwest coast. Its strong, lightweight wood is prized for aircraft, boats, and musical instruments.
tree
Swamp White Oak
Swamp white oak is an adaptable white oak of moist North American bottomlands, with two-toned leaves that are green above and silvery beneath. It is a popular, easy-to-grow shade and street tree.
tree
Snowbell Tree
A graceful small tree that hangs with rows of fragrant, bell-shaped white flowers in late spring. Its horizontal branching shows the dangling blooms off to perfection.
tree
Smoke Tree
A deciduous shrub or small tree named for the airy, smoke-like plumes of fading flower stalks that envelop it in summer. Many cultivars also feature striking purple foliage.
shrub
Rose
The rose is the world's most beloved flowering shrub, a thorny perennial grown for thousands of years for its fragrant, many-petaled blooms in nearly every color but true blue.
shrub
Nectarine Tree
A smooth-skinned variety of peach, the nectarine produces juicy fruit on a compact deciduous tree. It is genetically nearly identical to the peach, differing mainly in its fuzz-free skin.
tree
Lupin
Lupin is a striking perennial bearing tall, dense spikes of pea-like flowers in vivid colors above palmate leaves. A legume, it fixes nitrogen and is a cottage-garden showstopper.
flower
Loquat Tree
An evergreen subtropical fruit tree bearing clusters of orange fruit in late winter and spring. Ornamental and easy to grow, it offers lush foliage and unusually timed blossoms.
tree
Lobelia
Edging lobelia is a low, mounding or trailing annual smothered in tiny, intensely blue flowers from spring to frost. It's a staple of hanging baskets, window boxes and bedding borders.
flower
Japanese Cedar
Japanese Cedar, or sugi, is a tall, fast-growing evergreen conifer native to Japan and the national tree of that country. It has soft, awl-shaped needles and reddish, fibrous, peeling bark.
tree
Hydrangea
A leafy garden shrub famous for big rounded clusters of summer flowers that can shift between blue and pink depending on soil pH. Hydrangeas are showy, thirsty, and shade-tolerant.
shrub
Great Blue Lobelia
A native North American perennial producing tall spikes of vivid blue, two-lipped flowers in late summer. It is the blue counterpart to the red cardinal flower and loves moist ground.
flower
Dog Fennel
Dog fennel is a tall, feathery-leaved native weed of the southeastern United States that forms dense stands in old fields and roadsides and has an aromatic, somewhat unpleasant scent.
herb
Coast Redwood
The coast redwood is the tallest tree species on Earth, a fast-growing evergreen conifer of the foggy Pacific coast with flat needles, fibrous red bark, and an ability to sprout from its base.
tree
Coral Tree
The coral tree is a thorny deciduous tree or large shrub bearing dramatic spikes of waxy, deep-red, claw-shaped flowers in summer. Native to South America, it is the national tree and flower of Argentina and Uruguay.
tree
Cheatgrass
Cheatgrass is an invasive winter annual grass of the western United States, notorious for its sharp seeds and for fueling more frequent, intense wildfires across rangelands.
grass
Chinese Money Plant
The Chinese money plant is a charming houseplant with round, coin-shaped leaves on slender stalks. It is easy to grow and readily produces baby offshoots to share with friends.
houseplant
Boxwood
A dense, slow-growing evergreen shrub that has been the backbone of formal gardens, hedges and topiary for centuries. Its small glossy leaves clip cleanly into crisp shapes.
shrub
Broccoli
Broccoli is a cool-season member of the cabbage family grown for its dense clusters of green flower buds. It is best cut while the tight green heads are still closed, before they open into yellow flowers.
herb
Bluebell
Bluebells are spring bulbs that carpet woodlands in hazy drifts of nodding, violet-blue bells. The native English bluebell is a protected woodland icon, distinct from the more vigorous Spanish bluebell.
flower
Angel Wing Begonia
A cane-stemmed begonia with asymmetrical, wing-shaped leaves often spotted silver and flushed red underneath, topped by dangling clusters of flowers. It is a free-flowering, upright houseplant.
houseplant
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.
flower
New England Aster
A robust native perennial that crowns the fall garden with masses of purple, daisy-like flowers around golden centers. It is a magnet for late-season bees and migrating monarch butterflies.
flower
Geum
Geum, or avens, is a clump-forming perennial with airy stems of cheerful red, orange, or yellow flowers above hairy basal foliage. It blooms from late spring into summer in cottage borders.
flower