A native cool-to-warm-season grass forming graceful upright clumps with distinctive flat oat-like seed heads that dangle decoratively from the stems through summer + fall. Often called sea oats (though true sea oats are Uniola paniculata, a coastal species). Among the few native grasses that tolerates significant shade — useful for woodland-edge plantings. Self-seeds vigorously in moist soils; manage seedheads in formal settings.

A spectacular tall vase-shaped native fern with broad upright sterile fronds (resembling ostrich plumes — hence the name) and distinctive contrasting fertile fronds that emerge brown + persistent through winter. The traditional edible fiddlehead source — young curled fronds harvested in early spring are sold seasonally as a delicacy. Spreads vigorously via rhizomes in moist soils; provides good groundcover-scale presence.

A tall warm-season bunchgrass that was once dominant across the North American tallgrass prairie — Indian grass produces stiff vertical flowering stems topped with feathery light-brown panicles highlighted by yellow stamens August through October, then golden-orange fall foliage. Wind-pollinated; seeds feed songbirds and small mammals. Drought-tolerant, erosion-resistant, fire-adapted; among the most resilient native grasses for prairie restoration and meadow plantings.

Korean velvet grass (Zoysia tenuifolia) is an extremely fine-textured, warm-season turfgrass native to East Asia, prized as a low, almost mossy 'no-mow' lawn alternative and groundcover. Left unmown it knits into a dense, undulating carpet of tiny needle-fine blades that mounds and ripples like green velvet — the look that earns its other names, 'temple grass' and 'Mascarene grass.' It is slow to establish but, once knit in, dense and surprisingly traffic-tolerant. Two honest caveats keep it from being a carefree choice: it spreads aggressively by surface stolons (runners) and will creep into beds and over a neighbor's edge unless contained by hard edging, and like all zoysias it is a warm-season grass that turns straw-brown and goes dormant through cool weather — it is NOT evergreen in winter. Its taxonomy is also muddled: many authorities treat Zoysia tenuifolia as a synonym of Zoysia matrella or Zoysia pacifica, so it travels under several names in the trade.

A rough, sprawling Mediterranean annual grown for showy, open racemes of drooping, star-shaped bright blue flowers in summer. Branched stems and wrinkled, dull gray-green leaves are clad in bristly hairs and carry the taste and fragrance of cucumber. Easy in poor, dry soils, drought-tolerant, a magnet for bees, and a self-seeder that returns to the garden year after year.

A tough, deep-rooted perennial in the daisy family (Asteraceae), grown for both its sky-blue summer flowers and its many edible uses. Native to Europe and now widely naturalized along roadsides and in fields across North America, chicory sends up wiry, branching stems 3-4 feet tall from a long, stout taproot. The ray flowers are a clear sky-blue (occasionally white or pink), opening in the morning and closing again by midday. The same plant gives three classic harvests: bitter young leaves for cooking and salads, a roasted taproot used as a caffeine-free coffee substitute or additive, and forced, blanched shoots known as 'chicons' (Belgian endive / witloof). It thrives on poor, dry, sunny ground where pampered plants would not, and its deep taproot makes it genuinely drought-tolerant once established.