A welcome shot of color in the landscape, this tough, drought tolerant selection demands attention with strap-like, long, green foliage illuminated by creamy white striping along its edge. Forming a neat, rounded clump, ‘Bright Edge’ will send flower spikes from its center to soar above the foliage with clusters of creamy white flowers in the summer.

Yucca gets a bad rap as a landscape plant and who knows why!! Maybe because it seems common, maybe because it looks different, but this American Beauties native has a lot of landscape attributes that make it a garden must-have! Extremely tough, drought tolerant and willing to put up with the driest, sandiest soils, Yucca forms a rounded, spreading mound of long, pointed, deep green, spear-like foliage that gives rise to a towering flower stem that elevates above the greenery in early June. Big, white, bell-like flowers open along the stem for up to 3′ of its length attracting a range of colorful butterflies to sample their nectar throughout late June and July. Yucca does well in full sun and is equally at home in the perennial garden as well as the shrub border.

Steel-blue tufted foliage is accented by hundreds of pink, fragrant flowers. Easy to grow this colorful groundcover has excellent branching and is tolerant of hot dry conditions once it becomes established. The world’s very first Sedum and Orostachys hybrid! 

Yellowroot is a fantastic woody groundcover that easily spreads to form a 1-3’ tall dense carpet, even in shade. It thrives in average to moist, slightly acidic soil. Small purple flowers bloom in spring and later produce star-shaped fruits that are eaten by birds and other small animals. It is the perfect plant to use as transition between sun and shade, and wet to dry. But, it is perhaps best loved for its outstanding fall color that starts out clear yellow before changing to red and purple.

It’s not news that Wisteria flowers are spectacular it’s just that some are more spectacular than others. That’s the case with ‘Cooke’s Purple’, a selection from L.E. Cooke Nursery in CA that goes a long way toward proving there are some good things that come from the left coast! Like all Wisteria, ‘Cooke’s Purple’ is extremely vigorous and easy to grow in and half to full sun locations and that a strong wooden trellis is a absolute must for this plant to look and perform its best. What does make it different is the size of its flower panicle…its deep blue-violet individual flowers are held on grape-like panicles up to 10″ long. This HUGE bloom puts on a great show starting in mid to late May and, uniquely, will repeat it sporadically, with smaller panicles of bloom later in the summer months. Don’t be afraid to prune this plant hard to keep it in bounds and under control.

Grow Virginia Chain Fern in moist to saturated soils in shade or part sun. Be prepared for it to fill the moist soil area, but it will need help with weeding until it gets established. It also is beautiful, and less assertive, in average garden conditions.

Blooming in June on new growth, individual flowers are borne on long showy racemes and open as a lovely shade of dark lavender before fading. A beautiful flowering vine which can easily cover an arbor or pergola, creating a cool, shady place. Producing an interesting seed pod in late summer, this vine has lovely multi-season interests and is more reliably cold hardy than other wisteria.

Like all Wisteria, this native to the lower mid-Atlantic area is a quick grower that needs space and support to grow and look its best. A heavy arbor will allow this plant to thrive and do what it loves to do: grow and produce spectacular, 8-10″ long racemes of lavender-blue flowers in late May that may repeat during the summer months. Its flower display is breathtaking, fragrant and attractive to any number of native insects and butterflies looking to fill up on nectar. ‘Blue Moon’ loves full sun and will flower its best in that environment but it will tolerate less sun and still grow well. While this selection is native further south, it is one of the most northern hardy of all Wisteria and blooms reliably into Zone 3. ‘Blue Moon’ is a nearly ‘no care’ plant, in fact, your pruning will encourage vegetative growth at the expense of bloom so cut judiciously!

If you love the Wisteria bloom but hate the fact that it can be one of the most noxious, overpowering, invasive plants in the landscape, why not try this outstanding, native alternative that gives you outstanding bloom without most of the headaches. ‘Amethyst Falls’ is far less aggressive than other Wisteria, yet still produces a twining woody vine that deserves a heavy duty arbor or support. Soft, gray-green compound foliage emerges later than many plants in late April or early May followed immediately by big bud clusters that elongate and open in mid to late May revealing grape-like clusters of deep lilac to purple flowers. It’s an incredible show of bloom that you, along with any neighboring native insect and butterflies, will love. Even better, ‘Amethyst Falls’ blooms dependable at an early age while most of the Asian imports seem content just to foliate you to death! This American native is so superior to the imported variety it makes you wonder why anyone would grow any other Wisteria. This container size is exclusively offered to American Beauties program buyers!