(Blue Mist Shrub, Blue Spirea, Bluebeard, Longwood Blue Bluebeard)

The popular bluebeard 'Longwood Blue' offers lovely soft violet-blue flowers in late summer to fall. This vigorous small flowering shrub is as tough and drought tolerant as it is pretty. The hybrid originates from a cross between the two Asian species Caryopteris incana and C. mongholica and was bred at the famed Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

The deciduous shrub has a uniform mounding, rounded habit and becomes covered with many small silvery gray toothed...

(Blue Mist Shrub, Blue Spirea, Bluebeard, Summer Sorbet Bluebeard)

The terrific variegated bluebeard 'Summer Sorbet' offers light blue flowers in late summer to fall. This vigorous small flowering shrub is as tough and drought tolerant as it is pretty. The hybrid originates from a cross between the two Asian species Caryopteris incana and C. mongholica and was derived from a mutation of the popular cultivar ‘Kew Blue.’

The deciduous shrub has a mounding, rounded habit and becomes covered with many small green leaves edged in yellow, which...

(Bluebeard, White Surprise Bluebeard)

The heavenly bluebeard 'White Surprise' offers soft blue flowers in fall. This vigorous small flowering shrub is as tough and drought tolerant as it is pretty. It was discovered as a sport of 'Heavenly Blue', a hybrid which originates from a cross between the two Asian species Caryopteris incana and C. mongholica.

The deciduous shrub has a mounding, rounded habit and becomes covered with many small, toothed green leaves each with an irregular white border. The foliage has...

(Blue Mist Shrub, Blue Spirea, Bluebeard, Worchester Gold Bluebeard)

The popular golden-leaved bluebeard 'Worcester Gold' offers lovely soft violet-blue flowers in late summer to fall. This vigorous small flowering shrub is as tough and drought tolerant as it is pretty. The hybrid originates from a cross between the two Asian species Caryopteris incana and C. mongholica.

The deciduous shrub has a uniform mounding, rounded habit and becomes covered with many small golden to chartreuse toothed leaves that have a minty scent if crushed. In the...

(White Sapote)

The tasty tropical fruit, white sapote, is a relatively obscure but close cousin of citrus. In addition to its fine fruit, it has a pretty form and multicolored bark. Native to the middle highland elevations of southern Mexico and Central America, this broadly branched tree is usually evergreen but frost and drought can cause leaf drop, so it is better listed as semi-evergreen. When mature, it attains a somewhat weeping form and curvaceous trunk and branches. Its bark is warty, thick and gray with...

(Silver Cassia)

Silvery blue-green foliage and yellow buttercup-shaped flowers that appear in late winter are best ornamental features of the silver cassia. This fast-growing evergreen shrub is native to arid central Australia. It is exceptionally tolerant of dry soil, heat, frosts and hot sunlight. It looks like an acacia, but the five-petaled flowers reveal its inclusion in the genus Cassia. Silver cassia attains a wispy-looking rounded to upright, v-shaped habit.

To conserve moisture in its hot,...

(Giant Red Indian Paintbrush)

Tall in stature, meadow paintbrush brings upright tufted clusters of orange-red to pinkish red flowers from spring to fall. A semi-evergreen perennial native to the wetlands of western North America (no further east than the Rocky Mountains), it is also called the giant red Indian paintbrush.

The lance-shaped leaves are medium to dark green and overall are fine in texture upon the tall, wispy stems. Beginning in late spring, the stem tips bear a cluster of showy bracts (modified leaves) that...

(Southern Catalpa)

Southern catalpa is a broad, spreading, deciduous tree native to the southeastern United States. Its leaves are light green and heart-shaped. Southern catalpa bears fragrant white flowers with brown and purple markings in summer. These produce long, bean-like fruit pods in autumn.

Southern catalpa does well in moist, well-drained soils in full sun to partial shade and makes an interesting specimen tree. Cultivar 'Aurea' has yellow leaves and is smaller at maturity; 'Nana' is a dwarfed shrub...

(Golden Southern Catalpa)

Southern catalpa is a broad, spreading, deciduous tree native to the southeastern United States. Its leaves are light green and heart-shaped. Southern catalpa bears fragrant white flowers with brown and purple markings in summer. These produce long, bean-like fruit pods in autumn.

Southern catalpa does well in moist, well-drained soils in full sun to partial shade and makes an interesting specimen tree. Cultivar 'Aurea' has yellow leaves and is smaller at maturity; 'Nana' is a dwarfed shrub...

(Dwarf Southern Catalpa)

Umbrella catalpa is a dense, rounded, globe form grafted high onto southern catalpa. (It is often sold as Catalpa bungei.) It does not bloom and remains small but requires shaping. Catalpas prefer moist, well-drained soils in full sun to partial shade. Umbrella catalpa is useful in restricted spaces such as formal gardens and narrow streets.