Carnivorous plants are among the most unusual houseplants you can grow. Venus flytraps, pitcher plants, sundews, and butterworts capture insects with snapping traps, sticky tentacles, and tubular pitchers instead of pulling all their nutrients from the soil. A terrarium gives these species the boggy, humid conditions they evolved in and turns the whole setup into […]
Fir trees earn their place in the landscape twice over: they screen, shade, and anchor a yard with year-round color, and their wood shows up in framing, trim, and millwork. The firs belong to the family Pinaceae, with up to 56 species growing at higher elevations across North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North
The blue orchid in the floral department is a real plant with a fake color. Growers start with a white phalaenopsis orchid, wait for the flowers to open, and inject a patented dye into the flower spike to produce the electric blue tint shoppers see. A few genuinely blue-flowered orchid species exist, but the common
Yarrow is a medium-sized perennial in the aster family, easy to pick out by its feathery foliage and flattened flower clusters. It prefers full sunlight and well-draining soil, and it earns its place in butterfly gardens, along edging, and in rock gardens. Plant it in spring and it blooms from summer into fall, holding color
The ghost plant (Graptopetalum paraguayense) is a small evergreen succulent with grayish-white pointed leaves arranged in rosettes about 4 inches across. Grown as a garden perennial in warm regions and as a potted houseplant everywhere else, it takes on a blue-gray hue in partial shade and a pinkish-yellow tone in hot, full sun. The trailing
Sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum), also called sweetscented bedstraw, is a creeping, mat-forming perennial that turns shaded corners of a yard into a soft green carpet. It grows 6 to 12 inches tall, spreads 1 to 2 feet wide, and covers ground that turf grass refuses to fill. The whorled leaves and clusters of small white
Hydrangeas are among the most planted flowering shrubs in North America, and their summer and early fall blooms anchor countless borders. The question that comes up every spring is about light: do hydrangeas need full sun, or do they prefer shade? The short answer is that most hydrangeas grow best with four to six hours
The golden chain tree (Laburnum anagyroides and the hybrid Laburnum x watereri) is a small deciduous tree grown for one spectacular event: in late spring it covers itself with 10- to 20-inch racemes of fragrant, yellow, wisteria-like flowers that hang like strands of gold. The common name describes the bloom so precisely that gardeners often
Feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora) is an ornamental grass that keeps its upright shape through all four seasons. Dense clumps of narrow green leaves rise 3 to 5 feet tall, pink-purple flower spikes open in summer, and tan or golden seed heads carry the display into fall and early winter. It grows at a
White hydrangeas are deciduous shrubs and climbers in the Hydrangeaceae family that flower from late spring into fall. Six cultivated types dominate gardens: bigleaf, smooth, panicle, oakleaf, mountain, and climbing. Bloom form varies by species, with mopheads forming dense spheres, lacecaps ringing flat centers with sterile florets, and panicles carrying elongated cones. Most types grow
