These 7 Flowering Plants Look Like You Spent Hours Gardening But They Practically Grow Themselves
You don't have to work hard to have a gorgeous garden. These low-maintenance beauties fill your yard with color year after year, without much help from you.
Plants are no different to people: some put the effort in day in, day out with a smile on their face and zero complaints; others require fulltime management if they’re to function at all. And while there’s no escaping the full spectrum of humankind, you can sure fill your garden with low-maintenance plants that thrive on neglect, producing months of cheery flowers with hardly any help from you.
What makes any garden look truly amazing – and makes you look like an awesome gardener, too – is an abundance of flowers. And that doesn’t need to come at the cost of an equally high level of hard work from you. I only grow plants with a magic ratio of maximum blooms in return for minimal effort, and here I'm sharing some of the very easiest flowers to grow. They're all perennials so they’ll reliably return year after year, so you only need plant them once. And they’re all pretty drought tolerant so, while you’ll need to keep them well watered at first, until they grow their roots deep enough into the ground to find their own source of water, long-term they’ll thrive on neglect.
When I say I grow all these plants in my garden, what I should really be saying is that all these plants grow themselves in my garden. Apart from cutting down the old stems and pointing the hosepipe in their direction if there’s a prolonged spell of really hot, dry weather in summer, I very much leave them to their own devices. Do they sulk? Never. Do they keel over and die when I go on holiday? Nope. Can you plant them all now for easy color that'll last into fall? Hell yeah! Welcome to the world of star-performer plants that are perfect for low maintenance gardens and time-poor gardeners…
1. Salvia ‘Caradonna’
- Zones 4-8
- Full sun
- Grows 2 feet high and wide
- Flowers early summer to early fall
Purple is one of the best colors to have in your garden palette. It’s bright without being gaudy and makes the colors of all the flowers around it – blue, pink, yellow, red or orange – appear more vibrant. And Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ is one of the very best best salvia varieties to bring purple into your borders. As well as violet-blue spires of flowers, its stems are a wonderfully dark purple, and its aromatic foliage grows into a compact mound.
Pollinators adore the nectar-rich flowers, but not as much as landscape designers! And no wonder – this hard-working beauty works in all color palettes and is simple to care for, even by beginner gardeners, yet brings such a modern, stylish vibe to any garden. Deer and rabbits tend to leave it alone, too, so it really is an easy win.
This perennial sage flowers from late spring into summer – and if you trim off the spent flower spikes with a pair of hedge shears, it’ll rebloom all over again. For maximum flowers and the strongest tones, if you like to use color in your garden, just give it a sunny spot with at least 6 hours of sunshine. And the secret to keeping Salvia ‘Caradonna’ performing well for years without much input from you is simply to ensure it has good drainage, easily achieved by mixing soil improver and a handful of grit into the ground when planting.
Salvia 'Caradonna' is available from the Perennial Farm Marketplace Store via Amazon, and is also stocked by Woodies Garden Goods.
2. Geranium ‘Rozanne’
- Zones 5-8
- Full sun or partial shade
- Grows 1-2 feet high and wide
- Flowers May to October
Here’s another purple beauty that brings abundant blooms to your garden for next-to-no effort. Geranium 'Rozanne' grows a profusion of violet-blue blooms veined with purple all through summer and autumn, which pollinators love. The great thing about this hardy cranesbill is that it’ll grow pretty much anywhere, in any soil, as long as it gets a little sun. It puts up with everything the weather can throw at it, too, so this tough cookie is a great way to fill a tricky spot.
But the best thing about Geranium 'Rozanne' is that it doesn’t produce seeds. Being sterile means it puts all its energy into producing flowers from spring to fall, and also doesn’t gift you a gazillion seedlings to pull up in spring.
A perennial, it tends to grow out rather than up, but it’ll happily weave its way through other plants without smothering them. I’ve paired it with ornamental grasses in a front yard bed that gets baked by the sun all morning then is cast into deep shade all afternoon, that I very rarely water (just once so far this summer!). And honestly, it’s effortless. Its informal habit also makes Rozanne one of those easy-breezy plants often used by landscape designers to soften hard landscaping.
Proven Winners Rozanne hardy geraniums are available from Nature Hills.
3. Gaura lindheimeri ‘Whirling Butterflies’
- Zones 5-9
- Full to part sun
- Grows 3-4 feet high and 1-2 feet wide
- Flowers May to October
Here’s a plant that we should all grow more of, because it will flower from spring through fall even if you ignore it entirely! What’s more, pollinators flock to Gaura lindheimeri 'Whirling Butterflies', and its thin stems shift on the slightest breeze, bringing so much movement to any border. I have three plants and while they’re not the main focus of the beds, the white flowers brushed with blush pink add real depth, whirling about just above the main flush of perennial blooms.
The stems naturally form an open, airy shape, so this is a wonderful plant to bring a more romantic, informal vibe to your garden. But be warned, everyone who visits your garden will want to know what it is!
This is another sterile plant, which is why it continually flowers from late spring through fall. Gaura is super-easy to grow, and to take cuttings from, even if you’re a beginner gardener. Because this fabulous variety is relatively uncommon in the US, it sells out quickly. Plants are currently available from RedCrocus via Amazon, and are usually stocked by Woodies Garden Goods. If you’re searching for this plant at your local nursery or online, it’s useful to know that it’s recently been reclassified as Oenothera.
4. Lavender ‘Grosso’
- Zones 5-9
- Full sun
- Grows 2-3 feet high and wide
- Flowers July to September
So many of my neighbors have asked me what I do to grow such big, healthy lavender in my front garden. You see, they think I’m just growing a regular lavender and it’s my green fingers that are making it grow so tall and aromatic. And yes, it’s true that I always give lavender a gravel mulch to get more flowers, but my other secret is that this is Lavender ‘Grosso’.
This hybrid variety is a cross between English lavender and Portuguese lavender, and it produces very large, plump flower spikes on tall stems. Lavandula x intermedia 'Grosso' has a far higher concentration of essential oils – three or four times as much as English lavender – which means it’s incredibly fragrant too, which is why it’s often grown commercially.
The more sun Lavender 'Grosso' gets, the happier it is, and as long as it has well drained soil, it pretty much looks after itself. I occasionally throw the plant a bucket of water at it but more often than not, I forget. Grosso lavender is another sterile plant, so it flowers all summer long, and doesn’t produce any unwanted seedlings. Its nectar-rich flowers are adored by pollinators, too.
Lavender 'Grosso' plants are available from Burpee.
5. Japanese anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’
- Zones 4-8
- Full sun to partial shade
- Grows 3-4 feet high and 1-3 feet wide
- Flowers August to October
Yes, it’s true, a lot of Japanese anemones can be thugs in the garden, but ‘Honorine Jobert’ is perfectly polite and well behaved. It does still spread through underground rhizomes but far less vigorously than most other varieties, and has shallow roots so it’s easy to pull up if it wanders too far. Put it in a spot that doesn’t give it optimum conditions to spread – rich or loose soil – and it’s not any trouble at all.
However, ‘Honorine Jobert’ still has that wonderful wish to live that all Japanese anemones possess, making this perennial very easy to grow. Its elegant petals, a fresh white softened by the faintest touch of pink on their undersides, will refresh a tired, heat-baked garden in late summer, year after year, and continue through fall. I particularly love how the flowers dance on their wiry stems as summer draws to a close and the wind picks up. The buds are perfect little spheres, too, adding to the joy.
While this plant copes fine in full sun, because it prefers consistent moisture, it’s more low-maintenance if you grow it in a partially shady spot. Its fresh green foliage and white fall flowers brighten up the shade a treat, too.
Japanese anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’ plants are available from Woodies Garden Goods.
6. Hardy Sedum Autumn Joy
- Zones 3-9
- Full sun or partial light shade
- Grows 1-2 feet tall and wide
- Flowers August to November
I grow this hard worker in a front-yard bed that I haven’t watered for two years now, and it’s thriving. So, other than cutting back the old stems, which takes about a minute, Sedum Autumn Joy takes up none of my time or effort – but it still puts on a bobby dazzler display. Its flat-topped clusters of star-shaped flowers start a pale pink in late summer, morphing into a rich raspberry then to a copper-red tone over a couple of months, bringing a heap of easy fall color. That’s a lot of flower power already, but if you want even more, you can cut a third of the stems back in May, which gives you two tones of blooms at any one time.
The stems and seedheads of sedum Autumn Joy are really robust, too, so you can leave them standing through winter. Deer and rabbits don’t touch the succulent leaves, which are a vibrant fresh green tone. Bees and butterflies love it, and it’ll grow pretty much anywhere as long as it has good drainage – while it will still grow fine in partial shade, full sun brings super-sturdy stems and the strongest color.
Generally sold as ‘Autumn Joy’, this plant goes by a handful of other names, so if you want to check you’re buying what you think you’re buying, it’s good to know that this hybrid stonecrop’s official name is now Hylotelephium x mottramianum ‘Herbstfeude’. Sedum 'Autumn Joy' plants are available from Nature Hills.
7. Aster ‘Raydons Favorite’
- Zones 3-8
- Full sun to light shade
- Grows 2-3 feet high and wide
- Flowers September to October
All aster varieties generally thrive on neglect, and ‘Raydons Favorite’ is particularly so. A lot of asters grow tall and, while they produce lots of flowers, those sprawling stems can get pretty untidy. Turns out that this aromatic aster is a little different, too, as it’s recently been reclassed as Symphotrichum oblongifolium – and thankfully, it’s a whole lot easier to grow than it is to pronounce.
What I love about this plant is that it peaks just as many other flowers in the garden are starting to fade, and powers through fall in a blaze of lavender daisies with cheery yellow centres. Deer and rabbits dislike its aromatic leaves, yet it’s a valuable source of late-season nectar for pollinators. It forms a neat, bushy mound that doesn’t need staking, and as long as it has good drainage so its roots aren’t sitting in soggy soil all through winter, will reliably return year after year.
Aster ‘Raydons Favorite’ plants are available from Woodies Garden Goods.
It's no coincidence that all these plants are commonly used by landscape designers. While their clients may have the money to pay for a swish garden design, they don't always have much gardening knowledge, so designers often reach for low-maintenance, highly tolerant plants that will survive, no matter what. So the added bonus of adding these hard-working flowering plants to your yard is that they'll bring a designer look without the associated cost.
All these low-maintenance plants can be planted now, and will bring color to your late-summer garden and into fall.
