Discover A-Z flowers, with their names, features, care, and more.
I used to think perennials meant one glorious bloom, then months of green foliage doing nothing. Then I learned the trick: most spent flowers are just plants trying to make seed, and you can interrupt that process. Deadheading tricks the plant into believing it needs to keep blooming to reproduce. Iowa State University Extension confirms…
Ferns fascinate me every time I walk through a shaded garden or a rainforest trail. They were around long before flowers existed, and they still cover the earth in more forms than most people realize. There are roughly 12,000 fern species known to science today, spread across about 225 genera worldwide. That number keeps shifting…
Mushrooms are strange and wonderful. They are not plants, not animals, and yet they shape almost every ecosystem on earth. I have always found fungi a little mysterious. One day a patch of soil is empty, and the next morning it holds a perfect little cap. That quiet, almost magical growth is part of why…
Ivy has clung to human culture for centuries, quite literally. Its image on old stone buildings became so associated with prestige that it inspired the term “Ivy League” for a group of long-established American universities. The plant climbs using aerial rootlets rather than tendrils or twining stems. These rootlets grip onto bark, brick, and stone…
Hoya belongs to the dogbane family, Apocynaceae, in the same subfamily as milkweed. Botanists disagree on the exact species count, but the range is wide and growing every year. Researchers estimate the genus contains somewhere between 350 and 450 species, with some counts pushing past 500 published names once synonyms are included. One taxonomic checklist…
My grandmother had a spider plant that never seemed to stop producing babies. Every few months, another cluster of little plantlets would dangle from the pot, and she’d hand them out to anyone who visited. That’s the plant most people picture when they hear “spider plant.” But the genus behind it is a lot bigger…
The first Monstera I ever bought was a scrappy little cutting in a plastic cup, barely a single leaf with one hole in it. I remember feeling almost cheated. Where were the dramatic splits everyone talked about? That’s the thing about Monstera. Patience pays off, and the variety within this genus is bigger than most…
Tillandsia is the largest genus in the bromeliad family, with over 600 recognized species, according to North Carolina State University Extension’s Plant Toolbox. Some sources place the count closer to 650 to 700 when hybrids are included. That’s a lot of choice for one small houseplant category. If you’re here, you’re probably wondering which type…
Marigolds are one of those flowers I never get tired of. They ask for so little and give back so much color. The genus Tagetes includes close to 50 species, though only a handful show up regularly in garden centers and seed catalogs. Native to Mexico and Central America, marigolds have traveled the world over…
I’ve owned a heartleaf philodendron for years, and it’s survived more of my mistakes than I’d like to admit. Overwatering, low light, a forgotten repot — it shrugged most of it off. That’s really the plant’s reputation, and it’s earned. Philodendrons are genuinely forgiving. In fact, university horticulturists describe them as houseplants that often thrive…