Great Lakes Native Plants 158 Stories

This Eastern U.S. native plant will wow you with its delicate, snowflake-like petals and lacy texture

Gardening Guides Great Design Plant: Amorpha Canescens

Underused lead plant loves heat, laughs at drought and is truly gorgeous

Gardening Guides Great Design Plant: Woodland Garden Beauty Polystichum Acrostichoides

By Jay Sifford

Eastern U.S. native Christmas fern is a living decoration in the winter woodland garden

Gardening Guides Great Design Plant: Winterberry Rouses Frosty Gardens

By Charlotte Albers

Energize dormant winter landscapes with this shrub's brilliant berries — and do right by hungry birds too

Gardening Guides Great Design Plant: Lobelia Siphilitica Keeps Its Cool

Great blue lobelia, a flowering native that prefers moist soil, adds a calming blue hue to the late-summer garden

Gardening Guides Great Design Plant: Ratibida Pinnata Flutters in the Breeze

This bright coneflower brings splashes of yellow to eastern U.S. prairie gardens and perennial borders

Gardening Guides Great Design Plant: Geum Triflorum

Nodding red blooms, glittery effervescent seed heads and a tough-as-nails constitution make prairie smoke a winning ground cover

Gardening Guides Great Design Plant: Staphylea Trifolia Shines in the Shade

Plant American bladdernut for 3 seasons of interest: spring flowers and striped brown branches and bladder-like seedpods in fall and winter

Gardening Guides Great Design Plant: Eutrochium Maculatum

Sculptural, slightly tropical looking and a boon to wildlife, Spotted Joe Pye Weed is a gotta-have plant in many parts of the U.S.

Gardening Guides Great Design Plant: Eurybia Macrophylla Fills a Void

Plant bigleaf aster in late fall for late-summer color in the shade garden

Gardening Guides Great Design Plant: Silphium Perfoliatum Pleases Wildlife

Cup plant provides structure, cover, food and water to help attract and sustain wildlife in the eastern North American garden