The 10 Easiest Perennials to Grow – Guaranteed Success Even If You’ve Never Gardened Before!

When it comes to perennials, I have a simple rule: easy to maintain is easy to love. There may be gardeners out there who have the time to fuss and fret over dainty perennials but I’m not one of them. If you aren’t one of them either, you’ll appreciate this list of the easiest perennials to grow.

Perennial plants are plants that keep coming back, as opposed to one-and-done annuals. That automatically makes them easier over the long haul than other choices. But when you filter them out and find the easiest perennials to grow - there’s hardly any reason to look further.

Are these plants good for beginners? You bet they are! They aren’t fussy or frail, but rather robust, tough, tolerant, long-lived, and adaptable. They don’t need staking, pinching, or division, but produce lovely, healthy flowers, year after year. Any of these plants could become an appreciated member of your perennial garden.

1. Black-Eyed Susans

Who can resist the simple beauty of daisies? Add drama and you have incredible flowers. Black-eyed Susans are giant daisies all glammed up in canary-colored finery with the black cone-like center. Each one has its own tall, upright stem.

Black-eyed Susans attract pollinators galore - from bees to butterflies and beyond. But the plant provides enough flowers for all. Cut a vase-full of these native flowers today for more blooms tomorrow. Drought-tolerant? Yup. All they ask is a full sun location and well-drained soil. Order your black-eyed Susan seeds from Ferry-Morse and get ready for a golden flush of flowers in the late summer.

2. Peony

Everybody’s got a favorite perennial and mine is peonies, with their huge, romantic blowsy blooms and glossy emerald leaves, right out of a gardener’s dream. They look like the show-girls of the perennial clan but don’t think this means you have to work hard to grow them. These are reliable, low-maintenance plants that offer masses of fragrant spring blooms in pinks and whites and reds. They also need full sun and well-drained soil. Find a deeply colored 'Purple Black Beauty' peony bareroot from Lowe's.

3. Yarrow

Yarrow flowers are unusual and striking. The many mini blooms on slender stems form a flattened, umbrella-shaped canopy - in yellow, lavender, white or rose pink. Come rain, come drought, you can rely on yarrow. And the pretty foliage is part of the show. In the southwest, the plant is called plumajillo, meaning little feather, because of the feather-like shape of the plant’s fragrant leaves.

Common yarrow will astound you with its rapid growth when you plant it in a full-sun location in well-drained soil. Find a vibrant mix of yarrow seeds from Walmart and get ready for this to become your favorite perennial!

4. Salvia

Salvia plants, also called sage, is another of my personal favorites with its bold, bright spikes of flowers. I like the indigo and the purple best, but you can also pick pink varieties, and all have that subtle, gray-green foliage.

Give salvia sun and it will be happy, to hell with soil type. (But well-draining is best.) And when the flower spikes wilt? Snip them off to usher in yet another wave of blooms - to the joy of bees and butterflies and hummingbirds in the garden. Plant salvia ' Blue Bedder' seeds from Ferry-Morse and watch your garden become a pollinator magnet.

5. Catmint

Catmint might be the very best perennial for a beginning gardener to install. It has everything to please - graceful upright stalks of fragrant spring flowers (in lavender blues and pinks) and aromatic gray-green foliage - and absolutely thrives on neglect. Fast growing, reliable, and long-lived, catmint plant this rugged bloomer in large drifts or clumps.

A reliable long-lived perennial, catmint is a member of the mint family. It produces aromatic gray-green foliage and upright flower spikes in shades of lavender-blue, pink or white. When does it bloom? Easier to ask when it doesn’t, since the flowers start in spring and keep right on going until fall, attracting hummingbirds, bees, butterflies and other insect pollinators. But no insect pests! These perennial plants are virtually pest and disease-free. Purchase nepeta 'Purrsian Blue' catmint seeds from Park Seed to get growing.

6. False Indigo

I happen to love flowers that grow in spikes, and that’s the case for so many of these easy-care perennials, including false indigo. The spikes of pea-like flowers appear reliably every spring - yellow, blue, purple, or white!) and can do so for decades.

Like most of these perennials, false indigo prefers full sun and well-draining soil. Buy large starts to get a quicker start. Purchase an established blue false indigo start from Nature Hills online nursery.

7. Hosta

All the easy-care perennials on the list so far want the sunniest place in the garden. But every garden has a shady side too, and for these we look to hosta plants. These are incredible foliage plants - coming in an astonishing variety of shapes, colors and sizes. Pick a dwarf variety that seems to hug the ground or upright hostas almost as tall as you are (and much wider!) They are grown for their huge leaves with contrasting veining and gorgeous variegation, but the plant will also produce graceful spikes of lilac or ivory flowers that will be the joy of neighborhood hummingbirds.

And we weren’t kidding. They require shade to thrive, either full shade or partial shade. When you are out shopping, do yourself a favor and buy one of the slug-resistant varieties like 'Empress Wu' which can be found at the Home Depot.

8. Daylilies

When I learned that each daylily blossom only lasts one day, I was ready to knock this species off my personal perennial list. That would have been a big mistake since there are dozens of stems and every daylily stem produces dozens of flowers. Daylilies are rightly called the workhorses of the garden since they don’t need much fussing yet keep the flowers coming in waves.

Just install daylilies in a sunny spot and watch them go. The trumpet shaped flowers come in all sizes, colors and bloom types, from huge flowers to dwarfs, in yellow, orange, red, purple, pink and cream, often with a stylish, contrasting eye. Some bloom in early spring, others in fall. All have arching, grass-like foliage. Find a gorgeous blush pink 'Mini Pearl' daylily from Park Seed.

9. Lenten Rose

Lenten rose is sometimes called hellebore. It begins its bloom season in late winter and keeps on going through spring, producing flowers that look like cupped roses with prominent stamens in the center. This is another perennial for the shade garden, since it thrives in part or full shade. This perennial also tolerates drought well but needs well-draining soil. Find a beautiful hellebore from Park Seed to add color to your winter garden.

10. Sedum

Sedums charm with their unusual foliage even before the flowers appear, looking good all through the growing season. The showy, nectar-rich blossoms are lovely in the garden, where they attract butterflies and bees, but also make an impact as long-lasting cut flowers.

These plants may win top prizes for their low-maintenance ways. Do you need to deadhead? No you don’t. Divide them? Nope. Fertilizer? Not needed. Yet these perennials can stay vibrant even into winter. They will laugh off both extreme heat and a lack of sunlight, but either of these conditions can make sedum leggy. Just cut them back when they are done flowering and you’ll have your old plants back again. can cause sedum plants to get a bit leggy.

Sedums can thrive anywhere from a full sun location to partial shade. They do require well-drained soil. Find a pink stonecrop sedum from the Home Depot.

There are so many great perennial plants that are easy to care for and look fabulous in any landscape. Try one of these this year and see how easy they truly are!