(Chinese Fringeflower, Fringe Flower, Loropetalum, Purple-leaved Chinese Fringeflower)

The Chinese fringeflower Purple Diamond™, also known as 'Shang-hi', is an evergreen shrub that originates from Japan, China and southeastern Asia. It is a mounded evergreen shrub with arching branches. In late winter and early spring it offers fragrant spidery fuchsia flowers that appear sporadically the rest of the growing season. Its purple leaves are rounded, leathery and rough on their upper surface. Purple Diamond™ has some of the darkest purple leaves of any other cultivar.

Loropetalum...

(Trefoil)

Golden yellow flowers that look like the flickering flames of a candle have orangey tips that contrast Gold Flash trefoil's fine, light blue-green foliage. A hybrid derived from plants native to the Canary Islands, it is a deciduous vine-like plant that is low but spreading, like a tall groundcover. It may also be called parrot's beak.

It short leaves look like needles and occur in whorled tufts along the stems. The leaves are a medium green with hints of blue and/or silver. In late spring,...

(Parrot's Beak, Winged Pea)

The flowers of this tropical trailing evergreen perennial are colorful and unusual. They are bright red and/or gold and have a sharp protruding beak-like petal, which is this plant’s commonly called parrot’s beak or parrot vine.

Lotus berthelotii is native to the warm, dry Canary Islands, which exist off the coast of northwestern Africa. It bears feathery silvery-green foliage on low trailing stems. In spring and summer it produces curious beaked flowers that are scarlet, orange-red...

(Yellow Bush Lupine)

This truly shrubby perennial lupine bears bright lemon yellow flowers very different from its typically blue flowered kin. It is a native of coastal California where summers are long and dry, but fog and damp sea air offer plenty of atmospheric moisture. They are mostly found in sandy bluffs and coastal plains where soils are well drained but not particularly fertile. They play an important role in stabilizing dunes against wind erosion and nitrogen fixation.

This relaxed bushy plant produces...

(Havard's Lupine)

This is the most majestic of the Texas bluebonnets, wildflowers which have become the signature flower of that huge state. This species is found in a relatively small range along the Rio Grande and into Mexico. In the wild they are quite variable, with populations that explode in wet years and ebb in the dry. They tend to inhabit flat but well drained soils of dry desert regions and along roadsides where moisture seeps from under paving. As nitrogen fixers, these plants don’t need fertile soils and...

(Bluebonnet, Texas Bluebonnet)

This beautiful annual wildflower bears upright candles of delightful blossoms, which are called “bluebonnets.” It is the hallmark of its homeland, the state of Texas, where it is the official state flower. The plants are also naturally distributed in regions of Louisiana and Florida.

Bluebonnets germinate in fall, when temperatures are cooler and there’s more rain, then they overwinter as a clump of foliage. In the spring they bolt with indigo blue spikes of flowers. When they first open,...

(Bluebonnet, Texas Lupine)

The Texas lupine is a small bushy annual, that will sometimes survive as a short-lived perennial. The compact plant puts forth short spikes of blue and white flowers that appear in spring, when the growing conditions in Texas are most favorable. When they first open, the pea-like blooms are blue with white centers, and as they age the white centers turn purple. Insect pollinators know not to visit the older purple-centered flowers. Flowers are followed by dark, pea-like pods. Bluebonnet leaves are...

(Hybrid Catchfly)

A prolific bloomer, 'Rolly's Favorite' boasts hairy green foliage and rose-colored, star-like flowers from late spring through the summer. This catchfly is a mound-forming perennial, with elongated oval leaves that are most dense at the base of the plant, but grow on the flower stems, too. The leaves are lightly hairy and mid-to-dark green, but can carry a hint of blue-green and silver.

As early as mid- or late spring, the upright stems loosely branch to reveal fuzzy maroon flower buds that will...

(Alpine Catchfly)

Rounded clusters of fuchsia-colored flowers appear in early summer atop a tufted cluster of leaves, making alpine catchfly a cute but pretty alpine plant. Native to the subarctic mountains of North America, Europe and Asia (circumboreal), it is a short-lived perennial that will reseed itself.

A small plant, the narrow, dark green leaves form a rosette clump. From early to midsummer short stems arise and are topped with a rounded cluster of vivid fuchsia-violet flowers. Each flower has five petals...

(Alpine Catchfly)

Rounded clusters of white flowers appear in early summer atop a tufted cluster of blue-green leaves, making Snow Flurry catchfly a cute but pretty alpine plant. Native to the subarctic mountains of North America, Europe and Asia (circumboreal), it is a short-lived perennial that will reseed itself.

A small plant, the narrow, bluish dark green leaves form a rosette clump. From spring to midsummer short stems arise and are topped with a rounded cluster of white flowers. Each flower has five petals...