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.
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Peppermint
Peppermint is a vigorous aromatic perennial herb grown in gardens, a natural hybrid of water mint and spearmint with a strong menthol scent.
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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.
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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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Savory
An aromatic Mediterranean herb in the mint family, grown in gardens as a culinary herb. Summer savory is a tender annual; winter savory a hardy perennial.
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Basil
A fragrant, warmth-loving aromatic herb in the mint family, grown for its highly aromatic leaves.
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Lemon Balm
Lemon balm is a vigorous, lemon-scented perennial herb in the mint family, loved as a magnet for bees. It grows easily and can spread enthusiastically in the garden.
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Catnip
Catnip is a hardy, easy-growing mint-family herb famous for the response it triggers in many cats. It is also a useful pollinator and pest-repelling plant.
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Wild Bergamot
An aromatic North American mint-family perennial topped with ragged lavender flower heads that are magnets for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
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Hyssop
An aromatic, semi-evergreen Mediterranean shrub-herb in the mint family, bearing spikes of deep blue flowers loved by bees.
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Self-Heal
A low, spreading mint-family herb with squat spikes of violet flowers, forming a tough, pollinator-friendly mat across lawns, meadows, and woodland edges.
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Pennyroyal
Pennyroyal is a low, creeping mint with a sharp, spearmint-like aroma. It forms a dense ground-hugging mat and produces whorls of small lilac flowers in summer.
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Holy Basil
Holy basil, or tulsi, is an aromatic herb in the mint family, sacred in Hinduism. More clove-scented than sweet basil, it is grown in gardens and containers and traditionally near homes and temples.
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Purple Deadnettle
Purple deadnettle is a low winter annual in the mint family, recognized by its triangular, reddish-purple-tinged upper leaves and small pink-purple flowers. A close relative of henbit, it is a harmless, bee-friendly weed that carpets gardens and fields in early spring.
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Creeping Charlie
Creeping Charlie is a low, aromatic perennial in the mint family that spreads aggressively by creeping stems to form dense mats in lawns and shady gardens. Its scalloped, round leaves and small blue-violet flowers make it easy to recognize and notoriously hard to eradicate.
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Skullcap
Skullcap is a slender North American mint-family herb with tiny blue, two-lipped flowers. It takes its name from the small helmet- or skull-cap-shaped appendage on the calyx of each bloom.
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Henbit
Henbit is a low winter annual in the mint family that carpets lawns, fields and gardens in early spring with pinkish-purple tubular flowers. It is closely related to purple deadnettle and, like it, is a bee-friendly weed of cool seasons.
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Ground Ivy
Ground ivy is a creeping, aromatic perennial in the mint family with scalloped round leaves and blue-violet spring flowers, the same plant widely known as creeping Charlie. It forms dense mats in shady lawns and gardens and is notoriously persistent.
herb
Meadow Rue
Meadow rue is an airy perennial with delicate, columbine-like foliage and fluffy clouds of tiny lilac, pink, or white flowers. It brings a soft, ethereal texture to part-shade borders.
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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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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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Bluebeard
Bluebeard is a compact late-summer shrub smothered in clusters of blue flowers that pollinators adore. It is heat- and drought-tolerant and blooms when most shrubs have finished.
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Bee Balm
A fragrant North American native with shaggy, crown-like flowers in red, pink, or purple that are irresistible to bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Its aromatic leaves release a citrusy, minty scent when crushed.
herb