Determine your climate and hardiness zone, sun exposure, and soil punch in.
What to plant in such a harsh environment?
Start with a tough-as-nails perennial that features a cloud of purple flowers for three months in its first season.
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One thing Russian sage can’t live without isfull sun, which is essential for healthy bloom production.
Its flowers are blue and purple, and they appear in summer and fall.
Also called stonecrop, this plant can survive for years without watering, dividing, mulching, ordeadheading.
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The varied genus offers tall and creeping varieties, all with succulent leaves that shrug off insects.
A splash of bulb fertilizer will pamper bulbs but is unnecessary for peak performance.
Space them several inches apart to allow the colonies to grow over the years.
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Their tolerance to colder temperatures makes them a more manageable plant to expect to return reliably every year.
Hosta
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Hostas are the answer for yards with little to no sun exposure.
This plant’s hardiness is its tolerance for very little light.
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These low-maintenance perennials require almost no care; they come back yearly and are easy to propagate.
In the summer, they produce white, purple, and pink flowers.
It’s the definition of easy.
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Remove the old foliage once it becomes cold again, and you’re ready for the following year.
It prefers full sun to partial shade and does best in moist soil.
Arborvitae
Arborvitae is a member of thecypress family, originating in North America and East Asia.
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This evergreen conifer encompasses several species known for their slender, pyramidal growth habit.
This shrub tolerates clay-like soils, wet sites, urban locations, and often accompanying air pollution.
Arborvitae is commonly used to mark borders, privacy screens, hedges, and landscaping.
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In spring, it produces tiny, inconspicuous flowers.
The plants produce red, white, pink, and orange flowers in spring and summer.
They will return for the first few years but generally don’t have a long lifespan.
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Some prefer to cut the blooms before flowering and enjoy the bold leaves instead.
Tip
Canna lilies are grown as perennials in zones 6a-10a.
It produces white flowers in spring.
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It’s also resistant to pests, diseases, and hungry deer and rabbits.
It even self-prunes, dropping its branches to self-preserve in times of stress.
It can handle almost all soil types and hardly any care.
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Geraniums prefer full sun, but the hottest summer days could dampenblooms and foliage.
This also allows you to move them when the summer sun gets too hot.
These plants can also endure frost-filled winters and blistering summers.
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A key to their hardiness is they can withstand poor soils, even clay.
They thrive in most soils and are rarely affected by bugs or diseases.
Feather Reed Grass
Ornamental grassesbelong on every lazy gardener’s wish list.
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Many of them originate from the prairie and are used to surviving a range of pests and weather conditions.
The long flower panicles comprise many individual blooms, each with arich store of nectar.
Flowering happens on new wood.
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They thrive in polluted urban configs and can tolerate drought.
Butterflies love the low-maintenance plants, but deer don’t.
Lady’s mantle is one tough plant that can handle this environment.
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An exceptionally hardy plant, it will survive zone 3 winters.
Chartreuse flowers that appear in June are a lovely foil for blue and purple blossoms.
The lavender spikes aren’t showy, but bees love them in spring and summer.
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Lamb’s ear plants grow in full to partial sun and aredrought-tolerant.
Bee balm is one answer to the soggy garden dilemma.
New varieties, especially ‘Marshall’s Delight’ and ‘Violet Queen,’ boast superior mildew resistance.
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Agave
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You could kill the agave plant by caring for it.
They can tolerate heat and drought and resist disease and insects, making them ideal low-maintenance picks.
It is one of thefirst trees to flowereach year.
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It does well in pots and containers as long as there’s proper drainage.
If you live somewhere below 30oF, bringing rosemary insidein the winteris the best way to keep it thriving.
The only pruning necessary is to remove yellowing leaves.
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It produces stunning golden-yellow tiny flowers in summer.
Creeping Thyme
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Creeping thyme is another easygoing plant that thrives on neglect or drought conditions.
The only maintenance necessary is pruning woody stems to encourage the plant to produce new growth.
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Pink, white, and purple tiny flowers appear in the summer.
Sage
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Sage’s fuzzy leaves don’t require a green thumb to grow.
This small shrub-like herb has aromatic leaves in an eye-catching shade of silvery green.
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In summer, spikes of blue-purple flowers shoot up.
Sage thrives in full sun and prefers a drought-like environment to too much water.
It can also handle poor soil fertility.
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It is best brought inside during the winter or mulched to protect its roots.
It can also produce blue, red, pink, green, yellow, white, or bi-color flowers.
It can handle temperature extremes and is disease-resistant.
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It must be pruned to 12 inches each year to encourage it to return the next.
Fast-draining soil and full sun encourage these plants to spread quickly, allowing them to act as colorful groundcovers.
Deadheading isn’t necessary, but it can be done to remove any blooms that don’t survive winter.
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It is also heat, drought, and salt-tolerant and can handle rocky, poor soils.
Viburnum
Viburnum shrubs are not particular about where they grow but prefer fairly rich, moist soil.
Their hardiness comes from their ability to handle temperature extremes.
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Most viburnums have white or pink bloom times through spring and stunning fall foliage.
Fast-growing viburnums can be grown as either shrubs or small trees.
On a patio, you want low-maintenance plants that provide color without significant effort.
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Stonecrop and Knock Out roses do not need deadheading, require little maintenance, and have long bloom seasons.
These flowers will provide blooms from spring to the first frost when grown in the right conditions.
Lamb’s ear and rosemary are woody plants that can tolerate colder temperatures in most climates.
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If temperatures persist below freezing, you may need to bring rosemary in.
University of Maryland Extension.
North Carolina Extension Gardener.
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North Carolina Extension Gardener.
Alchemilla mollis.North Carolina Extension Gardener.
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