(Paperbush)

Paperbush is a small deciduous shrub with interesting open branching that bears late winter blossoms. The small yellow flowers are covered in fuzzy hairs on this native of China. These fragrant flowers eventually fade to a creamy white. The large leaves are nice dark green on this unusual shrub. Young leaves emerge with a felt texture. The branches are relatively few, but are very architectually appealing. After blooming, little purple-green berries develop. New flower buds, interesting in themselves,...

(Common Water Hyacinth)

Common water hyacinth is beautiful aquatic plant native to South America. It is a floating plant that forms dense mats, sometimes rooting in the mud. The leaves are elliptical to oval arising from rosettes on inflated petioles. The roots are dark blue-black and feathery. New plants form readily along floating stolons or horizontal stems. The flowers are held above the foliage in dense spikes when the weather is warm. The flowers are generally 2-lipped with blue to lavender petals and a central yellow...

(Blue Wheatgrass, Magellan's Wildrye)

Blue wheatgrass is a breathtaking clumping ornamental grass with fine foliage colored silvery blue. A native of the cooler lands and mountains of Chile and Argentina, it is a semi-evergreen perennial in the mildest of winter climates. The leaves are its glory, being most intense blue in the central younger growth, as the older leaves are pushed outward and downward to create a skirt. In late spring and summer, the often overlooked, small flowers appear on stems that tend to be held horizontally in...

(Brittlebush)

The sunny daisy-flowers of brittlebush are a familiar sight in the deserts of the Southwest United States and northern Mexico. The rounded, aromatic plants bear long-stemmed clusters of bright yellow blooms in spring, and sometimes again in fall or winter. The fuzzy, silver-gray, oval to lance-shaped leaves occur mostly toward the tips of the branches. Plants drop their leaves during severe drought, refoliating when rain returns.

This plant thrives in sun and well drained soils, and is remarkably...

(Zululand cycad)

Graceful and low in stature, the numerous frond-like leaves of Encephalartos ferox, the Zululand cycad, are stiff and held in an arching circle, with glossy green leaflets that have pronounced spines on their edges (which look like English holly leaves). Native to the coastal wooded grasslands of Mozambique and South Africa, this slow growing clumping cycad is considered one of the most admired of the African cycads; its species name of ferox means 'ferocious'.

Zululand cycad...

(Karoo Cycad)

Architecturally handsome, the numerous sharp blue-green leaves of the Karoo cycad are stiff and held in an upright but slightly arching cluster atop a plump stem. Native to the hot, arid interior of the Eastern Cape of South Africa, this slow growing cycad is the cold hardiest and most drought tolerant of the African cycads.

Karoo cycad slowly forms a plump, upright, trunk-like stem that is beige. From the stem top is a circular rosette of upright blue-green leaves. Each stiff but curving leaf...

(Bushman's River Cycad)

Bushman's River cycad forms a suckering clump of plants over several decades. The stiff, frond-like leaves are gray to blue-gray and teem with numerous sharp leaflets and lobes. Native to the hot, sunny scrub and rocky ridges of the Eastern Cape of South Africa, this very slow growing clumping cycad is considered one of the most ornamental and cold-hardy of the African cycads.

The low, stem-like stump of this cycad holds five to seven leaves. Very old plants may be a multi-stumped clump. Each...

(Encyclia Orchid, Orchid)

Once classified in the orchid genus Epidendrum, 150 to 235 species were placed into their own, common group named Encyclia. Encyclia orchids are epiphytes (growing on a tree) or lithophytes (growing on moist rock surfaces). They are herbaceous evergreen perennials native from tropical Central and South America and the West Indies.

These orchids develop pseudobulbs and one to four strap-shaped oblong or linear leaves grow from the pseudobulb tips. The flower stems also arise...

(Encyclia, Orchid)

Whether grown in the ground or upon a tree branch or rock wall, Hanbury's encyclia orchid is no less than extravagant from late winter into early summer with a tall flower spike of many rosy tan to mauve blossoms. A terrestrial (ground-growing) tender orchid from the highlands of Mexico and Guatemala, it can be found in clumps in the dappled shade of pine woodlands there. It also can grow as an epiphytic (growing upon another plant such as a tree) or wedged between rocks on a cliff.

This clumping...

(Hollandia Enkianthus, Redvein Enkianthus)

The slow-growing, smaller-size cultivar 'Hollandia' displays bright green foliage on red stems and offers bell-shaped, drooping coral-red and ivory-tan blossoms in very early summer. In fall this redvein enkianthus' leaves turn orange before dropping away. The shrub's habit is upright and spreading, and may have somewhat leggy-looking branches.

A tree-like deciduous shrub from Japan, redvein enkianthus has simple and elliptical leaves with bristles on the edges and red leaf stems. In late spring...