Compact burning bush (Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’) is one of the most visually dramatic shrubs in the autumn landscape, producing a fall foliage display so intensely, brilliantly red that it stops traffic and draws comments from neighbors who’ve never given a shrub a second thought. The color is not a subtle transition but a full, saturated…

Confederate jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) is one of the most beloved vines in Southern gardens, earning its devoted following through a combination of traits that are genuinely difficult to improve upon. Its fragrance is the first thing most people notice, a sweet, heady perfume released by the small, pinwheel-shaped white flowers in late spring and early…

Congo lilac (Syringa vulgaris ‘Congo’) is a classic French hybrid lilac that brings one of the most deeply colored and intensely fragrant flower displays available in a deciduous shrub. Its large panicles of single flowers open in a rich, saturated crimson-purple that’s considerably darker and more jewel-like than the soft lavender most people associate with…

Coral Beauty cotoneaster (Cotoneaster dammeri ‘Coral Beauty’) is a ground-hugging evergreen shrub that earns its place in the landscape through four full seasons of genuine ornamental interest and a toughness that makes it one of the most reliable low-maintenance plants available to home gardeners. In spring it covers itself in small, white, five-petaled flowers that…

Coral Reef sedum (Sedum ‘Coral Reef’, also listed under Phedimus ‘Coral Reef’ following recent taxonomic revisions) is a low-growing, mat-forming stonecrop that earns its place in the garden through foliage that seems to glow with warm, living color through most of the year. The small, fleshy leaves are a soft green in summer, but as temperatures cool in…

Corkscrew rush (Juncus effusus ‘Spiralis’) is one of the most architecturally distinctive plants available to home gardeners, producing tightly twisted, spiraling stems that coil and curl with a sculptural quality that looks almost too deliberate to be natural. Each stem emerges from the base as a deep, glossy green cylinder that spirals irregularly as it…

Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) is one of the most rewarding and underused landscape plants in the temperate garden, delivering genuine four-season interest with a generosity that few other shrubs or small trees can match. In late winter, weeks before almost anything else in the garden stirs, it erupts in a cloud of tiny, bright yellow…

Creeping fig (Ficus pumila) is one of the most enthusiastic and visually transformative vines available to warm-climate gardeners, capable of clothing a wall, fence, or structure in a dense, seamless carpet of small, heart-shaped leaves that creates an effect closer to living wallpaper than a conventional vine. In its juvenile phase, when the plant is…

Curly willow (Salix matsudana ‘Tortuosa’, also listed as Salix babylonica var. pekinensis ‘Tortuosa’) is one of the most visually arresting trees you can grow, producing dramatically twisted, contorted branches and stems that spiral and curl in every direction with an organic, almost calligraphic quality that commands attention in every season. In spring and summer, those…

Black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’) is one of the most visually striking plants you can add to a garden, and it’s surprisingly easy to grow. Hardy in USDA zones 5 through 10, this evergreen perennial holds its dramatic, near-black foliage year-round, making it a standout even in the off-season. It thrives in partial to…