Shrubs with yellow berries are mostly accidents of nature that gardeners decided to keep. About 4 out of 5 of the plants on this list are yellow-fruited forms of shrubs that normally bear red berries. Each began as a single odd branch or seedling that lacked red pigment. That missing pigment turns out to be … Read more

Shrubs with red berries are the most common fruiting shrubs in American yards, hedgerows, and woodlands, and that is no accident. Birds spread most shrub seeds, and birds see red sharply against green leaves. Over time, red became the standard signal that fruit is ready. That signal was never meant for people. A red berry … Read more

Shrubs with pink berries are far harder to find than shrubs with red, black, or blue ones, which is exactly why they stand out in a fall garden. Pink is one of the rarest fruit colors in the plant world. A hedge or border that carries it draws attention from October well into winter. Part … Read more

Plants with lime green foliage do something no flower can manage, which is hold a bright, glowing color from the last frost of spring to the first frost of fall. A bloom lasts a few weeks, while a lime leaf works for six months or more. That staying power is why designers treat this color … Read more

Shrubs with red flowers are the fastest way to add punch to a landscape, whether the color arrives in early spring on bare branches, in the middle of winter on an evergreen, or in waves from summer to frost. Many of the tubular red flowers below are visited by hummingbirds, so numerous entries double as … Read more

Determinate tomatoes are the compact, bush-type plants that grow to a set size, set their fruit on the ends of the shoots, and ripen most of the crop in a short stretch. They’re also called bush tomatoes, and they’re the reason a gardener with a patio, a small bed, or a canning project can grow … Read more

Lilly pilly is the common name for numerous species in the genus Syzygium, part of the myrtle family that also includes eucalypts and tea trees. Worldwide, Syzygium contains somewhere around 1,200 species, and roughly 50 to 75 of those are native to Australia, occurring from the Kimberley region of Western Australia across the Northern Territory, … Read more

Australia’s flora is genuinely unlike almost anywhere else on Earth, a direct result of the continent drifting in near-total isolation for tens of millions of years after separating from the rest of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. That extended isolation let plant life evolve along its own path largely undisturbed by the species mixing that shaped … Read more

Zone 5 is where the negotiating starts. A zone colder, the answer to nearly every borderline herb is just no, full stop, no amount of mulch or clever placement changes that. Here, the answer shifts to “maybe, if you help it a little.” French tarragon, which simply doesn’t survive Zone 4’s winters, can make it … Read more

Serviceberries get their name from a piece of genuine American folklore: the plants bloom as soon as the ground thaws in early spring, and in some rural communities, that first flush of white flowers signaled that the frozen earth was finally soft enough to dig graves and hold burial services for anyone who’d died over … Read more