Landscape Plant Lists

Are you looking for plants? Figuring out a great garden also means understanding plants. Here’s a list of places to go online to find information about plants. The resources are local to my area, Utah Valley, but similar resources can be found anywhere.

Landscape Plants

I’ve used all the resources listed below at times, but my favorites are:

Gardenia: Expansive database with searchable features. My only problem with it is because it’s not local for our area it sometimes misses plants that are available here or recommends plants that won’t do well here.

Tree Browser: For a lot of plants it is easy just to plant and see what happens. Impulse buying is great. But for trees, it’s so important to do the research and find the right tree. They are long-term investments. My go-to database is Tree Browser. It’s local for Utah, searchable by criteria, and contains a wealth of information to find the perfect tree.

Conservation Garden Park: This database is user-friendly. If you want a yellow-blooming perennial in the spring you can find it. The plant list isn’t exhaustive, but that’s not a bad thing. Instead, it focuses on plants that do well in Utah Valley.

Garden Centers, Nurseries, Online Plant Sales

People who sell plants are great resources to find plants. A huge advantage is you can get recommendations that are available for purchase. I also like to use these resources for variety and cultivar recommendation and check availability.

*Note that many more local garden centers have great selections of plants. These simply have online plant databases as well.

Public Gardens

Public gardens often have online databases of plants. These are great because the plants usually have been tried and tested. You can also visit the gardens and see examples of cultivated plants.

Books

Books tend to have more detailed plant information, including the care they need. But they can be bulky to use. Here are some of my favorites:

Publications

These helpful plant lists are not in a database form, but are useful references, generally focused on a specific type of plant.

Native Plants

These resources will help you determine what plants are native to your area. It can sometimes be difficult to figure out what exactly is native: are you looking at native to your country, state, county, or (ideally) ecoregion? The more narrow of a focus you can get, the better off you are, but also because of changing landscapes due to human intervention, it’s often a good idea to branch out a little too. I generally use the USDA Plant Database to check if a plant is native. Other resources provide lists of native plants generally by state.