If you want more flowers in your garden, you need plants that are guaranteed to perform. But with so many plants to choose from, how do you know which plants are easiest to grow and which will give you the most flowers?
We’ve chosen 10 plants that are easy to grow and will flower right through summer and into autumn – some will even give you year-round colour and interest. All the plants are perennial, so you can look forward to flowers for many summers. There are colours and shapes to suit every taste and every style of garden, and they’re all great for attracting bees and other pollinating insects to your garden.
In this video, Carol Klein shares five easy summer flowers that she loves to grow:
More plant inspiration
- Repeat-flowering perennials
- Best perennials
- Best ground cover plants
- Best summer shade plants
- Perennial plants for pots
Penstemon
[image id=”90946″ size=”landscape_thumbnail” title=”Plants for easy summer flowers: pink penstemon” alt=”Plants for easy summer flowers: pink penstemon” classes=””] Plants for easy summer flowers: pink penstemon
If you want to add some instant colour to your flowerbeds from June until the first frosts, penstemons are a great choice. Most varieties flower for months and are equally at home in the middle of a border or growing in a pot. The tubular flowers look like small foxgloves; they come in a range of colours and are popular with bees. Grow in full sun or partial shade. Penstemons are short-lived perennials that can suffer in cold, wet winters. Take penstemon cuttings in summer to make new plants, to replace any you lose over winter.
Height: 60-90cm Spread: 50cm
Flowers: June-October
Lavender
[image id=”90950″ size=”landscape_thumbnail” title=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Lavandula angustifolia” alt=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Lavandula angustifolia” classes=””] Plants for easy summer flowers: Lavandula angustifolia
Lavender is a fantastic all-rounder – it can be grown in pots or in the ground, it’s evergreen, with wonderfully fragrant leaves, fantastic for pollinators and suits different garden styles, from cottage gardens to contemporary schemes. English lavender and most hybrid types are hardy and can be left in the garden all year. French lavender is only frost hardy, so is best kept in containers and protected over winter. Grow lavender in full sun in well-drained soil. Cut back after flowering to prevent plants from becoming leggy and straggly.
Height: 50-80cm Spread: 60-90cm
Flowers: June-September
Salvia
[image id=”90951″ size=”landscape_thumbnail” title=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Salvia ‘Hot Lips'” alt=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Salvia ‘Hot Lips'” classes=””] Plants for easy summer flowers: Salvia ‘Hot Lips’
Salvias really earn their keep in the garden. The great range of forms and colours, from electric blue to deep purple, crimson to yellow, makes them indispensable garden plants. The nectar-rich flowers are magnets for bumblebees and butterflies. There’s a great variety to choose from, including tender bedding salvias and hardy perennials that come back year after year. They all thrive in full sun, and most flower from mid-summer to autumn. Add gravel to the planting hole to aid drainage if you have heavy soil.
Height: 40cm-1.5m Spread: 30-50cm
Flowers: June-November
Heuchera
[image id=”90957″ size=”landscape_thumbnail” title=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Heuchera ‘Paris'” alt=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Heuchera ‘Paris'” classes=””] Plants for easy summer flowers: Heuchera ‘Paris’
When looking for plants for shade, you can’t go wrong with heucheras. Their leaves come in an array of vibrant colours from orange to purple, black to lime green, giving you almost year-round colour. In summer, spikes of tiny flowers, often in contrasting shades to the leaves, add to their appeal. Great in pots or as a shade-tolerant groundcover plant for the front of a border.
Height: 25cm Spread: 35cm
Flowers: June-August
Helenium
[image id=”90943″ size=”landscape_thumbnail” title=”Plants for easy summer flowers: helenium” alt=”Plants for easy summer flowers: helenium” classes=””] Plants for easy summer flowers: helenium
If you want vibrant summer flowers that will bloom into autumn, the large, daisy-like flowers of heleniums are guaranteed to please. With blooms in hot yellows, orange and red, they look fantastic planted in drifts through a mixed border and can also be grown in pots. They combine well with ornamental grasses and other daisy flowers such as echinaceas and rudbeckias, and they are great for bees. Heleniums also make good cut flowers.
Height: 90cm Spread: 60cm
Flowers: July-September
Erysimum ‘Bowles’s Mauve’
[image id=”90954″ size=”landscape_thumbnail” title=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Erysimum ‘Bowles’s Mauve’ and Cirsium rivulare” alt=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Erysimum ‘Bowles’s Mauve’ and Cirsium rivulare” classes=””] Plants for easy summer flowers: Erysimum ‘Bowles’s Mauve’ and Cirsium rivulare
This is a beautiful, floriferous, woody-stemmed wallflower, bearing masses of purple flowers on tall spires, for months on end. In mild areas, it can flower virtually all year round. Grow Erysimum ‘Bowles’s’ Mauve’ in sun or partial shade. It’s a short-lived perennial but is easily replaced with young plants made by taking cuttings.
Height: 45cm Spread: 50cm
Flowers: March-November
Hardy geranium
[image id=”90944″ size=”landscape_thumbnail” title=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Geranium pratense ‘Mrs Kendall Clark'” alt=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Geranium pratense ‘Mrs Kendall Clark'” classes=””] Plants for easy summer flowers: Geranium pratense ‘Mrs Kendall Clark’
Cranesbills, or hardy geraniums, are easy to grow; they thrive in shade and flower for months – many until the first frosts. They have saucer-shaped flowers in shades of pink, purple, white or blue. Hardy geraniums are fantastic for pollinators such as bees and hoverflies. Grow in sun or shade. Cut back after flowering to encourage a second flush of blooms.
Height: 20-50cm Spread: 30cm-1.2m
Flowers: April-September
Hebe
[image id=”90942″ size=”landscape_thumbnail” title=”How to grow hebes – Hebe ‘Frozen Flame'” alt=”How to grow hebes – Hebe ‘Frozen Flame'” classes=””] Plants for easy summer flowers: Hebe ‘Frozen Flame’
Hebes, or shrubby Veronicas, are low-maintenance, evergreen shrubs. They are excellent in shrub borders and used as ground cover or low-growing hedging – they make a great alternative to box plants. Pollinators love the spikes of small flowers that are produced in early summer. Varieties such as Hebe ‘Frozen Flame’ have leaves that turn purple from summer to winter, adding extra colour to your borders. Grow in full sun to partial shade.
Height: 50-1m Spread: 50-1m
Flowers: May-September
Gaura
[image id=”90952″ size=”landscape_thumbnail” title=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Gaura ‘Ice Cool Rosy'” alt=”Plants for easy summer flowers: Gaura ‘Ice Cool Rosy'” classes=””] Plants for easy summer flowers: Gaura ‘Ice Cool Rosy’
Gaura are pretty, deciduous perennials which look great in a cottage garden or prairie border. They have small starry pink or white flowers, appearing from early summer right through to autumn. Their delicate stems are particularly useful for linking together other plants in a flowerbed, or they can be grown in containers. They tolerate partial shade.
Height: 50-90cm Spread: 50-60cm
Flowers: May-November
Verbascum
[image id=”90940″ size=”landscape_thumbnail” title=”How to grow verbascums” alt=”How to grow verbascums” classes=””] Plants for easy summer flowers: Verbascum ‘Cotswold Beauty’
Verbascums are stately perennials that are ideal for adding height and structure to planting schemes. Their elegant spires of summer flowers, in shades of pink, white, yellow, orange or even blue, look equally at home in a cottage garden or a manicured border. Grow in sun or partial shade. They are short-lived perennials, so it’s well worth propagating verbascums to get new plants for free.
Height: 70cm-1.5m Spread: 30-60cm
Flowers: June-September
