Top 10 Maintenance-Free Flowers and Plants

During the summer, many homeowners love spending time outdoors and tending to their flower beds. On the downside, maintaining a beautiful flower bed can take a lot of time and effort, especially during the hot summer months. Luckily, there’s a much easier way to work more efficiently, so you can spend more time enjoying your flower bed than tending to it. And it all starts with choosing the right flowers, plants, and trees.

If you’re looking for some beautiful perennials to brighten your landscape, here are 10 low-maintenance flowers and plants that you can grow in Houston. 

1. Autumn Sage (Salvia Greggii)

   This evergreen shrub can be found in many flowerbeds throughout Houston. Besides the fact that it loves the light and heat from the sun, this plant thrives in dry soil that has good drainage. Available in a wide range of flower colors, including white, yellow, orange, purple, fuchsia, pink, and red, Autumn Sage only requires occasional watering and pruning to provide years and years of brilliant landscape color.

2. Texas Lantana (Lantana Urticoides)

   With its interesting flowers, which turn as they age from yellow to orange and red, Texas Lantana is a wonderful addition to any landscape. This tender perennial shrub flowers profusely all summer long and has a mesmerizing, sweet scent that attracts butterflies and hummingbirds.

3. Chaste Tree (Vitex Agnus-Castus)

   Chaste tree varieties produce some stunning flower colors, including purple, white, pink, and deep blue. These trees bloom from late spring until early fall and have pleasantly fragrant flowers. Since the Chaste tree is also drought-tolerant and resistant to most insect pests and diseases, it’s a must-have for a low-maintenance flowerbed in Houston.

4. Desert Willow (Chilopsis Linearis)

   Desert Willow is a large shrub characterized by excellent drought resistance, rapid growth, and ease of maintenance. Its exotic-looking, funnel-shaped blooms, which come in purple or dark pink, often with yellow, white, or dark purple streaks, make a nice contrast with its bright green foliage.

5. Eastern Purple Coneflower (Echinacea Purpurea)

   Eastern Purple Coneflower is a beautiful, delicate, yet low-maintenance flower. This plant makes some long-lasting cut flowers, with tall stems and soft pink-purple petals surrounding an iridescent red-orange cone.

6. Yucca (Yucca Filamentosa)

   Yucca varieties are some wonderful evergreen perennials that can bring a touch of sophistication to any low-maintenance landscape. Although this plant isn’t very picky, it prefers well-drained soils and more frequent watering during the growing season.

7. Crape Myrtle (Lagerstroemia Indica)

   With their attractive summer blooms, brilliant fall colors, and interesting winter bark, Crape Myrtle trees make nice additions to any landscape design, in any season. Since Crapes offer various flower colors and are available in different sizes, from dwarf varieties to towering trees, they can be used to complement any small or large flowerbed.

8. Hibiscus (Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis)

   “Lord Baltimore”, “Flare” and “Moy Grande” are some of the most widely used hibiscus varieties in Houston flowerbeds. Displaying some stunning 10- to 12-inch-wide bright scarlet, fuchsia-red, or rose-pink flowers, these varieties are some of the finest low-maintenance flowering perennials that you can choose for your landscape.  

9. Cape Plumbago (Plumbago Auriculata)

   With its beautiful sky blue flowers, Cape Plumbago delivers an interesting pop of color that you can add to your flowerbed. Not only is Cape Plumbago an attractive, heat-tolerant, and sun-loving plant that prefers sandy, well-drained soil; it is extremely versatile as well. Basically, you can use it as a groundcover, or to cover walls, fences, and trellises. Because this plant responds well to hard pruning, you can also keep it nicely shaped.

10. Ornamental Grasses

    Ornamental grasses play a vital role in adding texture and interest to your landscape. Whether you prefer regular lawn grass, white-striped zebra grass varieties, fuzzy feather reed grasses, or the rich purple fountain grass, any of these drought-tolerant grasses can be used as fillers particularly in areas that are difficult to water.

By simply choosing any of these plants, you can have a beautiful landscape with very little effort on your part. But what’s even better is that you can grow any trees, shrubs, and flowers without worrying about potential foundation damage. Thanks to the BioBarrier system that we can install upon your request, you’ll be able to protect your home’s foundation even from the most aggressive tree roots.