a plant I’d order: spiraea thunbergii ‘ogon’

As Digital Content Editor Christine Alexander explains, pollinators play a vital role in our ecosystem and we should all be doing our part to support their populations:

Flowers are usually the first things that grab our attention when we are selecting plants to add to our landscapes. However, most plants only flower for a short period of time, so it behooves us to consider plants’ other attributes—and there are many! Sometimes the same flowers that seduced us into opening our wallets are replaced with an amazing fruit display. Colorful fruits of all shapes and sizes can add drama to our landscapes throughout the year. In addition to their visual beauty, many fruits are important sources of nutrition for wildlife, particularly birds. Here are a few examples of awesome plants whose fruit shines in the garden in summer, fall, and winter.

Living and working in northwestern Oregon, garden designer Wesley Younie is no stranger to dealing with challenging environments. When presented with this garden’s elevation changes, drainage management, and extreme climate conditions, he devised a plan that addresses it all—along with a specific functional wish list from the homeowners. Want to know which plants he used? Here are the plant IDs for this beautiful, sustainable landscape.

In their original environments, invasive plants are restrained by their natural adversaries, with whom they co-evolved. However, when they are introduced to a new environment without these natural enemies, some plants can flourish and spread uncontrollably, ultimately becoming invasive.

The abundance of beautiful and well-grown houseplants gives a special sense of comfort at home. Apart from being pleasing to the eye, some house plants have the ability to purify the air quality.

Think before you allow poppies to proliferate. Poppies rob a lot of goodness from your soil.

Fritilliary in damp shade

Grasses are just not limited to meadows anymore, some of them are prized for their aesthetics and grown in containers for their architectural appeal! Moreover, it’s becoming a trend to grow them indoors, which is why we’ve selected 9 Best Ornamental Indoor Grass varieties that you can grow as a houseplant.

Each year, I look forward to watching the bleak winter landscape begin to come to life as if transitioning from black and white to Technicolor. Yellow is one of the first colors to appear with the flowers of forsythia and our state flower, yellow jessamine. As I was driving to work this week, I noticed a new color emerge amidst the roadside trees.

Are you looking at plants in your garden and wondering why they aren’t flowering?

(click any green type to link to the profile of that plant)Golden hinoki cypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Crippsii’Japanese umbrella pine, Sciadopitys verticillataConcolor fir, Abies concolorWeeping Alaska cedar, Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula’Korean fir, Abies koreanaLacebark pine, Pinus bungeanaFavorite Coniferous ShrubsRussian arborvitae, Microbiota decussataGolden spreading yew, Taxus baccata ‘Repandens Aurea’Dwarf white pine,Pinus strobus ‘Nana’Conifer SlideshowIf you missed it earlier this year, tour the above favorites and more in my slideshow of favorites conifers.Categoriesconifers for beginners trees & shrubs

SOMETIME AGO, I overheard visitors to one of the country’s finest public gardens recounting their experience. “I liked it,” said one woman, who called herself a professional gardener, “but I didn’t like that all the plants touched.” I think perhaps she missed the point: That’s the best part, the making of botanical mosaics, the weaving-together of things; the part when the mulch disappears.