Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Mint
A vigorous, cooling aromatic herb that spreads readily by runners, grown as a popular culinary herb for its refreshing, strongly scented foliage.
herb
Lettuce
Lettuce is a fast-growing leafy annual in the daisy family, a cool-season garden staple. It comes in loose-leaf, romaine, butterhead, and crisphead types.
herb
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.
flower
Asparagus
Asparagus is a long-lived perennial grown for the tender shoots, or spears, that emerge in spring. Once established, a bed can persist for 15-20 years or more.
herb
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.
flower
Spearmint
Spearmint is a fast-spreading, aromatic perennial herb grown in gardens. Vigorous and easy to grow, it is best contained in a pot to keep it from taking over the garden.
herb
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
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.
flower
Chrysanthemum
A classic autumn-blooming perennial with dense, colorful flower heads in countless forms. Mums are a staple of fall displays and a major cut flower worldwide.
flower
Beet
Beet is a cool-season root vegetable grown for its rounded, swollen root and its leafy greens. The familiar deep-red root is the most common, but golden, white, and striped types also exist.
herb
Sorrel
Sorrel is a leafy perennial herb in the dock family, grown in herb and vegetable gardens for its bright green, arrow-shaped leaves. It grows from a deep taproot and is among the earliest greens to emerge in spring.
herb
Sage
Sage is a hardy Mediterranean shrub-herb with soft, gray-green aromatic leaves, widely grown as a culinary herb and ornamental in sunny gardens.
herb
Rue
Rue is an aromatic evergreen subshrub with blue-green, deeply lobed foliage, long grown as an ornamental and pollinator herb in dry, sunny gardens.
herb
Pea
The garden pea is a cool-season climbing legume grown for its seeds and pods. It is one of the earliest crops to sow in spring and fixes nitrogen to enrich the soil.
herb
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
Chervil
A delicate annual culinary herb with lacy, fern-like leaves, grown in gardens. One of the classic French fines herbes, it prefers cool weather and light shade.
herb
Angelica
Angelica is a stately, architectural biennial herb in the carrot family with huge domed greenish-white flower heads and bold, divided foliage. It is a dramatic showpiece in herb and ornamental gardens.
herb
Thyme
A low, woody Mediterranean herb with tiny aromatic leaves, valued as a drought-tolerant ground cover and a superb bee plant.
herb
Phlox
Phlox are North American perennials ranging from low spring-flowering carpets to tall, fragrant summer border plants. Their massed clusters of five-petaled flowers draw butterflies and perfume the garden.
flower
Nasturtium
Nasturtiums are easygoing annuals with round, lily-pad leaves and bright spurred flowers in fiery reds, oranges, and yellows. They are a cheerful, low-fuss choice for beds, baskets, and borders.
herb
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.
flower
Ginger
Ginger is a tropical perennial herb grown for its knobbly, aromatic underground rhizome, cultivated across the warm regions of the world.
herb
Croton
The croton is a tropical shrub famous for its leathery leaves splashed with brilliant yellow, orange, red, and green. Bright light is the key to its vivid coloring.
shrub
Heliotrope
A tender shrubby perennial loved for dense clusters of tiny purple flowers with an intense vanilla-cherry fragrance, earning it the nickname 'cherry pie plant.' It is grown as a fragrant bedding and container plant in most climates.
flower