Is it possible to have a beautiful flower garden without pruning, fertilizing, deadheading, and spraying? It is, if you base your garden on these low maintenance flowers. Decide whether you want annuals for a short term commitment, or perennials for many returns, and appreciate your flowerbeds from the comfort of your lounger, rather than on bended knee.

1. Cleome

This tall beauty often gets passed over for more compact bedding plants. Although cleome plants don’t look like much in the nursery six-pack, they quickly make up for lost time in June, throwing out pink and purple firework shaped blooms that attract spectacular hummingbird moths in the evening. New flowers continuously form on the plant’s top growth, while the seedpods that form beneath will populate the garden with new cleomes next season.More »

2. Cosmos

Don’t let the delicate, lacy foliage of cosmos flowers fool you. This plant doesn’t wilt in triple digit temperatures, and produces armloads of cheerful daisy-like flowers for cutting. Cosmos plants prefer poor soil, and are impervious to insect pests and diseases.More »

3. Daylily

From the original wild daylilies of red, orange, and rose, we now have more than 70,000 varieties recognized by the American Hemerocallis Society. Aside from pure white and pure blue, you may get carried away by the number of color patterns and flower forms found in this hardy perennial. The daylily adapts to a wide range of soil, exposure, and moisture conditions, while producing blooms over a long season comparable to an annual.More »

4. False Indigo

Gardeners seeking that perfect blue flower can forget about high-maintenance Himalayan poppies. Instead, try the lovely Baptista australis, hardy in zones 3-9, which produces showy pale blue flowers that attract butterflies in full sun to part shade. If you deadhead these flowers, you’d miss the ornamental fruits that look attractive in dried flower arrangements. False indigo plants will form a handsome colony over time, shrugging off drought, poor soil, and nibbling rabbits.More »

5. Globe Amaranth

“Grows like a weed” can be a red flag for invasive qualities, but not so with the globe amaranth. Also known as gomphrena, the globe amaranth will grow and produce dozens of charming pompom blooms all summer without fuss, but it won’t take over the garden or self-seed in an aggressive way. The purple form is the most commonly offered variety of this full sun annual, but you can also find white, pink, and red forms.More »

6. Million Bells

Million bells look like petunias, but have several advantages:

• More heat and drought tolerant than petunias
• Don’t attract tobacco budworms
• No deadheading required
• No messy sticky substance on leaves

Try this trailing flower in one of your hanging baskets this summer, and see how many hummingbirds appreciate your selection. Look for the newer ‘Petchoa’ hybrid of million bells, which has larger flowers and a vigorous growth habit.More »

7. Morning Glory

Annual vines are so satisfying in the instant height they provide to the flower garden. In the past, the average wait to see flowers on these low maintenance vines was 120 days, but the deep purple flowers of ‘President Tyler’ appear in about half that time. Remember that morning glories like a little neglect, and if you fertilize them you’ll get excessive foliage at the expense of blooms.More »

8. Russian Sage

The aromatic foliage of Russian sage isn’t pleasing to everyone, but the blue spires of flowers that appear from early summer onward complement many garden styles. The only insect I have ever seen visit these plants is a bee, making this a nice selection for organic gardens. Be aware that Russian sage plants will spread by underground rhizomes to form a handsome colony over the years, which can be a welcome or annoying trait, depending on the size of your garden.More »

9. Sedum

This large genus of flowering plants fills the flower gap in late summer and fall, when many other garden plants are winding down for the season. Also known as stonecrop, you can choose from creeping groundcover plants that won’t exceed two inches in height, to mounding plants that grow at least two feet tall. All the plants require is good drainage and full sun to produce their butterfly-attracting flowers each year.More »

10. Zinnia

If you’ve shied away from trying to grow flowers from seed before, let zinnias be your initiation. Recent color introductions make sophisticated color combos accessible for new gardeners. ‘Green Envy’ and ‘Purple Prince’ are two exciting matchups, or grow the ‘Candy Stripe Mixed’ for interesting speckled variations. The more you cut these flowers, the more they will bloom.More »