15 Easy Plants to Grow in Your Garden
As a busy gardener, you want easy plants to grow in your garden that provide reliable beauty with minimal effort. Whether you need annuals, perennials, or shrubs, these selections are among the best plants for beginner gardeners and experienced gardeners alike. These dependable varieties are also some of the most low maintenance garden plants, making them ideal easy outdoor plants to grow in landscapes and containers. If you're looking for easy garden plants for beginners, these proven performers will help guarantee success throughout the growing season.
Top 5 Easy Annual Plants
SUREFIRE® Begonia benariensis (buy online)
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The easiest petunia for landscapes. Hands down, one of the easy outdoor plants to grow for gardeners of all skill levels. Supertunia Vista varieties deliver an outstanding performance the entire season, lasting an extra month in southern states and well into fall in moderate climates. They flower earlier, grow taller and wider, and spread more vigorously than other petunias. No deadheading is needed for these low maintenance garden plants to bloom from spring through fall. |
Gardeners have grown to love the Proven Winners line of thornless, seedless, odorless, non-sticky cleomes. These easy garden plants for beginners exhibit excellent heat, humidity and drought tolerance, bloom spring through fall and have minimal oedema issues. They are excellent spring extenders and dependable low maintenance garden plants offering all-season color on easy to care for plants. |
Extremely versatile in sun and shade, containers and landscapes, ColorBlaze Coleus are a must-have for vibrant landscapes. Their broad color range ensures there’s a variety to match every style scheme. All ColorBlaze Coleus are bred to be non-flowering or very late flowering, so you won’t have to pinch off any blooms to maintain their neat appearance throughout the season. |
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Top 5 Easy Perennials
The shorter, more compact habit of these native cultivars make them easier to manage than the full-sized species and they require little water and fertilizer to thrive making it a reliable easy care perennial. They top out at just 2 ½-3 feet tall and wide at maturity, bearing long spikes of colorful flowers in spring. Do NOT deadhead Baptisia! Doing so will remove the decorative seed pods that provide interest from fall through winter. |
Daylilies are one of the easy care perennials to grow and very low maintenance too. With little effort from the gardener, they thrive in sunny landscapes year after year. Other than removing spent flower stalks for a neater appearance, they only require division every few years. Proven Winners offers five of the very best cultivars available in a rainbow of colors. Ideal for easy outdoor plants to grow and are considered among the best plants for beginner gardeners. |
Coral Bells are remarkably versatile in containers and landscapes, offering evergreen color in delicious shades of purple, near-black, chartreuse and apricot. Trimming off the old foliage once a year in spring is the only maintenance required—earning its place on the list of easy plants to grow in your garden. In warmer zones without extreme temperature swings, gardeners won’t have to worry about heaving. In the north, Heucheras may need to be reset every few years to rebury the root ball. |
A reliable standby for shade gardens, hostas return faithfully year after year, multiplying quickly to form a sizable clump. You’ll have plenty to share within just a few years. Some protection from deer and rabbits may be needed if they are a problem in your garden. Slugs are a common issue, but can be avoided by doing a thorough cleanup in fall to eliminate their eggs. |
 ROCK ‘N GROW™ Sedum (buy online)Autumn Stonecrop is an excellent choice for low maintenance, low water landscapes. This is a plant you can truly plant and forget, as it thrives in almost any type of dry to average soil with little to no fertilization. Deer are the only pest you may encounter with this durable, long-lived, easy care perennial. For visual interest throughout winter, do not deadhead the russet seed heads until the following spring. |
Top 5 Easy Shrubs
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Arborvitaes are commonly found in many gardens and for good reason—these evergreens make a very low maintenance shrub that works well as a living screen and adds structure to the landscape. North Pole® is a popular selection that forms a narrow, upright column about 10-15’ tall and resists winter burn while maintaining a zone 3 hardiness. Thujas come in a variety of different shapes and colors, and can be pruned to suit your needs. |
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Barberries are popular foundation shrubs due to their brightly colored purple, gold and red foliage which often takes on glowing fall colors. Their colorful foliage plays especially well off of low maintenance shrubs and trees. Sunjoy barberries are available in a range of colors and sizes, each bred to keep its size and shape naturally with little need for pruning. Gold Pillar is a favorite for its bright gold foliage and unique columnar shape. |
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