(Bougainvillea, Paperflower, San Diego Red Bougainvillea)

The big, hearty, long-blooming, red-flowered bougie ‘San Diego Red’ is named for the city where it originates. Its specific history is unknown, but this large, evergreen, woody vine persists in southern California like no other. It is the leading red-flowered bougainvillea by which others are judged.

The long arching branches of 'San Diego Red' are bedecked with dark green leaves and colorful blooms that appear year-round. Its flowers are actually comprised of showy petal-like leaves, called...

(Bougainvillea, Paperflower, Silhouette™ Bougainvillea)

Contemporary plant breeders have transformed bougainvillea, typically an enormous vine, into a few small, manageable shrubs, such as ‘Singapore Pink,’ so that gardens of any size can host intense tropical colors. Most garden bougainvilleas are hybrids descended from giant vines of South America and bred to create less vigorous but highly floriferous vines for gardens. This one, ‘Singapore Pink,’ (also known as Silhouette) takes the downsizing farther, allowing us to rethink using bougainvillea in...

(Bougainvillea, Ms. Alice™ Bougainvillea)

This gorgeous dwarf white bougainvillea offers a shrub sized for smaller gardens but they are commonly massed in larger landscapes too. These woody plants have been bred from giant vines of South America to create more floriferous garden candidates. But this plant takes it even further and asks us to rethink how we use bougies in our landscaping.

This dwarf bears snow white flowers year around adding soft and exciting looks to the garden. The color is displayed on bracts, which are modified...

(Bougainvillea, Paperflower, Temple Fire Bougainvillea)

A fabulous dwarf bougainvillea, ‘Temple Fire’ shows flaming color in both its flower and its bronze leaf accents. This is a cultivar derived from Bougainvillea glabra, which was crossed with hybrids to create a rainbow of colors and dwarf forms for smaller gardens. It retains the intense, long-lasting color of its ancestors in spite of its short stature plants.

The brick red color blooms are bracts, leaves that have evolved to lure pollinators. The bracts are very long lasting and fade...

(Bougainvillea, Torch Glow Bougainvillea)

This bougainvillea, ‘Torch Glow,’ stands on its own amidst the many garden bougainvilleas due to its unique, upright, shrubby form. Bougainvilleas are technically lianas, tropical shrubs with reaching stems that grow into the treetops of their jungles of origin. Yet this selection was discovered in California among a group of seedlings imported from the Philippines. Ordinary plants have fast-growing stems with widely spaced leaves. The leaves of ‘Torch Glow’ are tightly packed together on their...

(Sideoats Grama Grass)

Sideoats grama grass is a versatile, clumping, warm season ornamental grass with pretty red flowers on decorative stems from summer to fall. This perennial is native to much of the New World, from Canada southward all the way to Argentina in South America. In spring the gray-green leaves remain compact, making a nice filler among the spring and summer blooming prairie wildflowers. By midsummer, this grass sends up slightly taller stems that have purple-turning-green oat-shaped flowerbuds that will...

(Blue Grama Grass, Mosquito Grass)

Blue grama grass is a perennial warm season grass grown for its fine, gray-green leaves and one-sided decorative flowers. A compact grower, it is native to the arid western United States and Mexico where soils are dry and alkaline.

Fine, narrow, gray-green leaves emerge in spring. In summer slender stems rise above the foliage lined with one-sided flower buds that resemble mosquito larvae. The tiny flowers are reddish purple when they open and quite decorative lining the stem tips. In autumn the...

(Blonde Ambition Blue Grama Grass, Blue Grama Grass)

An exceptionally showy, heavy-flowering selection of blue grama grass, 'Blond Ambition' is a perennial warm-season grass grown for its one-sided, horizontal decorative flowers and blond, light yellow-tan seed heads. An upright, clumping plant larger than the wild grass species, it is native to the arid western United States and Mexico where soils are dry and alkaline. Cultivar 'Blonde Ambition' was discovered and introduced by David Salman of High Country Gardens in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Fine,...

(Firecrackerbush, Scarlet Bouvardia, Scarlet trompetilla)

With glossy dark gray-green foliage, Firecrackerbush lives up to its moniker from summer to winter with clustered scarlet red flowers that look like elongated trumpets. A rather open-branched and free-formed evergreen shrub, it is native from the extreme southwestern United States into Mexico and Central America.

Its leaves are oval or lance-shaped, and dark-green with hints of gray-green. The tops of the leaves are glossy while the undersides are lightly hairy. At the tips of the branches, from...

(Brachyscome)

There are approximately 70 species included in the genus Brachyscome. Characterized by their showy display of pretty, daisy-like flowers, these variable plants may be annuals or perennials, and either evergreen or deciduous. They are native to alpine and subalpine regions of Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea, and occupy a range of habitats from bogs to moist meadows and dry, rocky slopes.

The foliage of these plants may be held in ground-hugging rosettes, or borne on upright,...