As a man who offered a one-year warranty on plants, I’ve seen death. I’ve personally killed more plants than most people have ever grown but boy did I see a lot of people struggle with their plants. Since returns came straight out of my pocket, I did everything I could to give each plant the best chance to survive.

When a couple would come in talking about their summers off and their plans to head to Europe, I knew I was about to give my plant a two-month vacation too—from water.

Like I mentioned in a past newsletter, every customer who walked into the nursery said some version of this:

"I'm looking for a low-maintenance plant that blooms all summer, grows fast but not too big, and isn’t that expensive."

Let’s break that down.

Low maintenance: There is such a thing as lower maintenance, but there’s no such thing as no maintenance. Plants need water, nutrients, and decent soil. When they dug your basement and dumped clay back over the good topsoil, you weren’t left with ideal growing conditions. Picking the right plant for those conditions is what makes maintenance lower—not the plant itself. People say, “but Natives can survive without water.” Sure. What you didn’t see were the 5,000 seeds it dropped, 400 that sprouted, and the 4 that survived the first year. You’re only seeing the winners. Nobody’s out there showing you all the dead ones to give you an honest picture of survival rates.

Blooms all summer: It’s possible, but it depends on where you live. Whether in the South or out West, you get the luxury of growing tropicals blooming year-round. In the North, you’ve got to either bring in tropicals for the season or have a nice rotation of blooming plants. Each season covered with something. Up here, roses are one of the few things that bloom all summer. Maybe crape myrtle a bit farther south.

Grows fast but not too big: Plants don’t hit a growth target and stop. They either grow fast and get big or grow slow and stay manageable. You can’t have both. If you want something that looks good now but doesn’t get too tall, then buy a bigger plant. Pay the grower to give you the time you don’t want to wait. Time is money. Either you spend it, or they do.

"Isn't that Expensive" As mentioned above, time is money. Plants are priced on four things: how fast they grow, how easy they are to grow, how hard it is to find the plant or the starts, and the ratio of demand to supply.

If something is a slow grower, it takes more time to get it to market, and growers have to charge for that. The reason you see tiny plants and small pot versions of plants, is to make them affordable. In some cases that may be fine; in others, you've passed the burden onto the homeowner. The cherry tree last week was a good example. It was a single twig. One more year at the grower and the head would have been formed, and five or six nice branches would have been developed. Younger plants are a great way to save money, but much more work and care. The newest plant introductions are going to be expensive, especially if they are from Proven Winners. They charge growers 3x more than other plants because of all the marketing. Add in the demand, and you have the highest-priced plants in the garden center.

Then there are the rare plants—the hard-to-find, interesting ones your neighbors don’t have. Those are always more. In short, the not-expensive plants don’t fit most of the other qualifications they are looking for.

Bottom line? The “not expensive” plants rarely fit the other requirements people are asking for.

That said, I’ve got ten winners. I call them that because they’re the kind of plants I could toss in the front yard like a newspaper and still have a good shot they’ll live. Like, plant-them-by-the-mailbox-and-ignore-them kind of tough. They take full sun like a lifeguard and still look good, tough. Some even bloom for a long stretch or have great foliage.

The Tough 10

1. Amsonia hubrichtii

Common Name: Arkansas Blue Star
Zone Hardiness: 5–9
Height and Width: 2–3 ft tall, 3–4 ft wide
Sun or Shade: Full sun to part shade
Description: The native is fantastic, and the cultivars are great too. It’s fluffy and wispy and holds a beautiful clump all season. The texture alone makes it worth planting, but the bonus is you get soft blue spring flowers and showstopping yellow color in the fall.

2. Sedum 'Frosted Fire'

Common Name: Frosted Fire Stonecrop
Zone Hardiness: 3–9
Height and Width: 1–1.5 ft tall, 1.5–2 ft wide
Sun or Shade: Full sun
Description: If you’ve learned by now I like variegated foliage and this one is pretty stable. You expect the flowers to be red like most tall sedums and then BAM!!!. White. If you want red you can get ‘Autumn Fire’ which is also variegated. The common name for this down south is “Never Die”. I joked at the nursery that it could fall out of the back of your car in the parking lot and live wherever it landed. I also said if you return this as a dead plant you are banned from buying plants.

3. Callicarpa americana

Common Name: American Beautyberry
Zone Hardiness: 6–10
Height and Width: 3–6 ft tall and wide
Sun or Shade: Full sun to part shade
Description: This is my favorite color in the world. I call it Beautiberry Purple. This plant will live from Central IL all the way down to Miami. You can cut it back as hard as you want and it comes back stronger. Gets stronger the further you go south. May have to mulch it for the winter above Zone 5B. The flowers are nice, nothing spectacular. The berries are lovely

4. Geranium sanguineum 'Max Frei'

Common Name: Max Frei Cranesbill
Zone Hardiness: 3–8
Height and Width: 8–12 in tall, 12–18 in wide
Sun or Shade: Full sun to part shade
Description: Compact mound of finely cut foliage with magenta-pink blooms in late spring and early summer. Very hardy and easy to grow. Makes a great groundcover. The only issue is that it is so hardy it tends to walk the border. If another plant is against it, then it won’t spread. In a sense, it will eat the space you give it. That’s my daughter’s mini cow. It was her protection cow in her bedroom. Twenty-five years later he’s a garden cow. I’ll throw in that this plant will take any type of sun. I have it on east side and west side and it performs equally well on each.

5. Salvia nemorosa 'Rose Marvel'

Common Name: Rose Marvel Salvia
Zone Hardiness: 4–9
Height and Width: 10–12 in tall, 12–14 in wide
Sun or Shade: Full sun
Description: I really could say ALL purple salivias. 100% a can’t kill, or shouldn’t be able to kill plant. Salvia May Night has been a best-selling perennial for 50 years. There is a reason. The blues and reds are not as hardy. Stick to the purple varieties to keep it in the no kill zone

6. Iris germanica

Common Name: Bearded Iris
Zone Hardiness: 3–9
Height and Width: 2–3 ft tall, 1–2 ft wide
Sun or Shade: Full sun
Description: Iconic. I know I don’t have to even tell you about this plant but I have been taking pictures of different bearded Iris on my runs this year and I’m up to 40. And that’s on my 7 mile loop. I also love the variegated foliage to give me all season beauty. You trade the larger flowers and variety of colors for the foliage. Little Hint: Fall is the best time to plant and find cheaper bulbs online. They ship dry and the selection is fantastic and much cheaper than potted. The issue is we don’t start thinking about them until they bloom and forget about them after

7. Heliopsis helianthoides 'Summer Sun'

Common Name: False Sunflower
Zone Hardiness: 3–9
Height and Width: 3–5 ft tall, 2–3 ft wide
Sun or Shade: Full sun
Description: Bright yellow daisy-like flowers bloom all summer. Tough and long blooming. Great cut flower and pollinator plant. These do well in almost the entire US and Europe. There are also nice variegated selections like ‘Loreine Sunshine’ and a few other varieties which are shorter or single-petaled. Even hardier than coreopsis IMO

8. Viburnum carlesii 'Spice Island'

Common Name: Spice Baby Viburnum
Zone Hardiness: 4–8
Height and Width:4–5 ft tall and wide (as tall as 8 feet)
Sun or Shade: Full sun to part shade
Description: Compact form of Korean spice viburnum with intensely fragrant pink-white flowers in spring and good fall color. Last week I talked about the fragrance of this snowball bush. It’s such a sweet spring scent. This has all that but a nice compact size. If kept trimmed its full and loaded with flowers in the spring. I don’t think the fall color is spectacular but every tag you read will say it is. I think every single home should have one of these.

9. Lantana camara (Hardy in warm zones)

Common Name: Lantana
Zone Hardiness: 9–11 (annual elsewhere)
Height and Width: 1–3 ft tall, 2–4 ft wide
Sun or Shade: Full sun
Description: Half will know this as an annual, half will know this as a plant that almost grows too fast. When I was in Hawaii they were spraying weed killer on it because its so invasive to them. The only way to kill lantana is to overwater it or freeze it out. Otherwise its going to bloom its heart out all year long. The trailing varieties are great hanging baskets for me, and great groundcover for Florida, Texas, and California

10. Hibiscus moscheutos

Common Name: Hardy Hibiscus / Rose Mallow
Zone Hardiness: 4–9
Height and Width: 3–6 ft tall, 3–4 ft wide
Sun or Shade: Full sun
Description: It’s like a piece of furniture that with dinner plate sized blooms. It is the last thing to come up out of the garden so almost everyone who grows it the first time thinks it died over the winter. Then before you know it, its gone from a little sprig to these 4 foot by 4 foot plant with HUGE flowers. The flowers come in pretty much every color you can think of. They also have new almost black foliage which is a great backdrop for the vibrant flowers.

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