Shamrock Inkberry
Plant Library
Featured Plants
Acer pensylvanicum
Goosfoot Maple
Striped Maple is an important wildlife food, a favorite for many woodland critters and its nectar is important to honeybees. Typically grown as a small tree it can also grow as a large shrub in the wild.
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Acer rubrum
Red Maple
Fast-growing with a pleasing oval shape, this outstanding specimen shade tree features deep green, trident foliage with gray green leaf backs. Tiny red flowers emerge in early spring to the delight of early native pollinators. Foliage puts o...
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Acer rubrum Autumn Flame
Autumn Flame Red Maple
Incredibly easy to grow, 'Autumn Flame' is an outstanding looking tree with a clean summer look and blazing fall foliage color that make it a plant that should be used even more. This is one of the earliest flowering of all our native maples with its...
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Acer saccharum
Sugar Maple
Here's the tree that made New England famous! It's easy to see why this tree is so prized once you look at its broadly oval to round form and its thick but not impenetrable canopy of dark green, trident shaped leaves that provide medium shade from th...
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Acer saccharum Super Sweet
Super Sweet Sugar Maple
This tree is a mass producer of super sweet maple making it perfect for producing syrup. In addition it provides nice summer shade and beautiful fall foliage.
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Actaea pachypoda 'Misty Blue'
Misty Blue White Baneberry
This plant is a striking, multi-stemmed woodland perennial known for it's soft, bluish-green, finely cut foliage. Flowers appear in May, followed by vivid, reddish pedicels which produce large, white fruit with a distinctive black dot in autumn, p...
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Actaea racemosa
Black Cohosh
Actaea racemosa, commonly called black cohosh, adds architectural height and late summer bloom to a shaded part of the border or shade garden. Also effective in woodland gardens, cottage gardens and naturalized areas. Best in...
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Agastache foeniculum
Anise Hyssop
Strongly upright growing with great foliage texture, this plant forms the perfect garden backdrop while still adding strongly anise-scented foliage and outstanding, stem ending terminal spikes of small lavender to purple flowers in mid to late sum...
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Allium cernuum
Wild Nodding Onion
Easy to identify by its distinctive, nodding, pastel lilac-pink flowers in late spring, Nodding Onion thrives in challenging sites such as hot sun and gravely soil. It is strikingly beautiful and is well-suited a formal or wild garden, as well as ...
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Alnus serrulata
Hazel Alder
Found naturally along streambanks and bogs, this smaller deciduous tree has smooth, gray-brown bark with alternating, wavy, hairy leaves. Slim, green male flowers and red female flower appear in the winter. Fruiting cones with woody scales (resemb...
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Amelanchier canadensis
Shadblow Serviceberry
This vigorous, multi-stemmed native is a true harbinger of spring in the northeast part of the country and one of the easiest, most rewarding landscape plants to grow. Its stems grow strongly upright producing an oval shaped plant that can be used ea...
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Amsonia tabernaemontana
Bluestar
A textural masterpiece, this selection features willow-like foliage lining stiff, mound forming stems that end with light blue, star-like flowers that bloom in late May. Perfect for moist, shadier spots, Bluestar attracts pollinators and lights up...
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Andropogon gerardii
Big Bluestem
Big Bluestem is a clumping, strongly upright growing grass that makes a great tall backdrop in any perennial landscape. It's breathtaking in mass plantings, with its thin foliaged texture and its striking orange to red fall color. Strong rooting a...
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Andropogon gerardii 'Red October'
Red October Big Bluestem
'Red October' is a show stopper with year round beauty. The foliage emerges in spring with reddish highlights. In summer the foliage is a lush, deep green. Burgundy red flowers bloom in August while the foliage takes on a purple red hue. The first...
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Andropogon virginicus
Broomsedge
Beautiful, easy to grow, warm-season grass, so versatile it will grow almost anywhere. Lovely planted in large sweeps mixed with native wildflowers like milkweed, black-eyed Susan and iron weed. In autumn, the grass turns a warm reddish-brown colo...
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Anemone canadensis
Canadian Amenone, Windflower
This native charmer is not found in the garden much but is a stand out in the wild as it colonizes moist areas along bodies of water or stream banks in semi-shaded areas. Just because it's uncommon in the home landscape doesn't mean it shouldn't be t...
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Aquilegia can. Little Lanterns
Little Lanterns Wild Columbine
This power packed little gem looks too small to produce the abundance of flowers it does from April to June but seeing is believing as wave after wave of brilliant red backed, yellow corolla flowers cover this plant for weeks on end. These flowers ha...
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Arctostaphylos Massachusetts Hybrid
Massachusetts Hybrid Kinnickinnick, Bearberry
This beautiful looking native groundcover has an incredibly refined look for a plant that revels in poor, dry, infertile soils. 'Massachusetts' is a nearly prostrate grower with small, lustrous, deep green evergreen foliage that hugs the branches,...
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Aronia arbutifolia Brilliantissima
Brilliantissima Red Chokeberry
An underused native stunner, this narrow, upright growing shrub is ideal for grouping in sandy or moist soils and will perform like a champ with landscape interest throughout the season. Foliage emerges dark green and shiny and provides a great backd...
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Aronia melanocarpa Iroquois Beauty™
Iroquois Beauty™ Black Chokeberry
Easy to grow Iroquois Beauty™ is a introduction from the Morton Arboretum and was selected for its unique compact habit. 10 year old plants have slowly colonized to 5' wide and 3' tall. Showy white flowers bloom in May and are followed by da...
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Aruncus dioicus
Goats Beard, Brides Feathers
The foliage resembles that of Astilbe, topped by dense spikes of cream-colored flowers. Makes for a background of even a specimen plant. Blooms from June through till July.
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Asarum canadense
Wild Ginger
There's not a shade garden anywhere that won't benefit from the presence of this American Beauties native! Rounded, deep green, cup-like leaves form a tight, low, spreading rug of green that is subtle yet distinctive in the garden. This low hugging f...
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Asclepias incarnata
Swamp Milkweed
While this plant is an absolute must for attracting butterflies to the landscape, it is also a must for the beauty it adds to the garden. Upright growing with long, lance-like foliage, this Asclepias provides tall backing to any American Beauties gar...
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Asclepias incarnata 'Ice Ballet'
Ice Ballet Swamp Milkweed
Deep green, lance-like leaves line upright stems that end with flattened masses of lightly fragrant white flowers in early to mid summer. It is perfect for grouping in the back of the garden and thrives in moist to wet areas. This is an essential ...
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