Guide to Sun Loving Plants

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Sun-Loving Plants

family celebrating in their back yard

Sun-Loving Plants Guide

If you have just moved into a new home, you may find that the trees in your area are still young, offering very little shade. Maybe you’ve planted shrubs in your yard and are waiting for them to get established. If you find yourself gardening in a sunnier area than you bargained for, this sun-loving annuals guide will help you create landscape plantings that will thrive in full sun conditions.

DIAGRAM KEY

Shrub & Tree Row (Optional)

Back Row (Taller Plants)

Middle Row (Mid-Size Plants)

Front Row (Shortest Plants)

PLANNING A LANDSCAPE

Planning a new landscape is a bit like trying to organize family members in a family photo. You want taller people in the back, shorter people in the front, and you want to stagger people a bit so that everyone is seen by the camera. The same can be said about designing a successful landscape. Arranging plants by height is a great place to start when planning a landscape. We’ve applied the family photo concept to the provided diagram. Check out the diagram and key to see how plants of different heights interact with each other. Just like with a family photo, start your landscape layout by starting with your back row plants and working forward. The top row outlined in bright blue represents an optional shrub or tree layer that could become the tallest part of your landscape when established. Keep it in mind when thinking about plant heights. Below you’ll find our top recommendations for sun-loving landscape annuals, organized by height.

UNDERSTANDING A PLANT’S SUN REQUIREMENTS

The back of a plant tag has a lot of useful info. Study the back of your tag to find the light requirements needed for a plant to thrive. In this case, look for plants that prefer Full Sun conditions (6+ hours of direct sun per day)

SUN EXPOSURE TERMINOLOGY

Full sun – 6 or more hours of direct sun per day
Part sun – 4 to 6 hours of direct sun per day, including some afternoon sun
Part shade – 4 to 6 hours of direct sun per day, mostly before midday
Full shade – less than 4 hours of direct sun per day

BACK ROW

(TALLER PLANTS)
MAX HEIGHT: 2′-4′ (Except Graceful Grasses^® Vertigo^® Pennisetum)

Ranging in height from 2-4′, this row of plants can provide a backdrop for shorter plants, create a privacy screen, or an interesting texture layer. Grasses like Vertigo Pennisetum can become a dramatic focal point, reaching up to eight feet in height!

Tall Plants

MIDDLE ROW

(MEDIUM-HEIGHT PLANTS)
MAX HEIGHT: 1′-2′

Once you’ve chosen your tall back row plants, move on to finding them some friends with these medium-height varieties. These reach a maximum height of one to two feet.

Medium-Height Plants

FRONT ROW

(SHORTEST PLANTS)
MAX HEIGHT: 5″-14″

Reaching a maximum height of 5-14″, these short or mounding plants are your front row. They can be used to create borders or fill in the gaps of your landscape.

Low or Spreading Plants

LANDSCAPE DESIGN TIPS

As you plan a landscape layout, consider these tried and true design principles. They’ll help you to create a cohesive, visually interesting planting.

Focal Point

Do you want your landscape to show off a striking group of flowers? Maybe you love foliage and want to punctuate your landscape with gorgeous grasses. Deciding on a point of focus is like coming up with a thesis statement. It will help center your design and make decisions on complementary plants or hardscape elements easier going forward.

Plant Size

Generally, you’ll want to place taller plants against a building or in the back of a flowerbed, and shorter, mounding plants towards the front of your planting or along a path. This will create an attractive tiered effect that leads the eye and ensures that all the plants are visible.

Color

Consider how the colors of the plants in each of your landscape rows will play with one another. Complementary colors like purple and yellow can create striking contrasts. Groupings of hot or cool colors (think yellow and orange, or purple and blue) can also make a bold, unified statement.

Texture

Imagine an inviting pillowy row of low mounding sedum, or wispy stalks of fountain grass as they sway gently in the breeze, or the vibrant burst of solid color from a large bed of bright pink petunias. Every plant shows off different textures, and those textures become even more pronounced when used en masse in a landscape. And similar to using complementary or contrasting colors, playing with contrasting textures can yield beautiful results!

USEFUL LINKS

Fun Fact

Many of these tough plants are also pollinator magnets! Incorporating them into your landscape will help support your local populations of butterflies, birds, and bees.

POLLINATOR GARDEN

See a pollinator garden diagram and get plant ideas to create your own pollinator-friendly landscape.

VIEW RECIPE

SECOND POLLINATOR GARDEN

This pollinator-friendly landscape recipe features bright pink gomphrena, orange cuphea, and vivid blue evolvulus.

VIEW RECIPE

Dry & Low Humidity Climates

If you live in a dry climate, deal with low humidity or are worried about water use, here are some other projects to help. These pages will introduce you to some tough, drought-tolerant plants that will not only survive, but thrive in hot, dry environments with high light levels.

DROUGHT TOLERANT LANDSCAPE

Learn about flowers and plants that are true dry climate warriors, get ideas for drought-tolerant patio containers, and more.

VIEW PROJECT

DRY ARID LANDSCAPE

This guide will help you select bold, colorful plant varieties that naturally thrive in hot, dry conditions.

VIEW PROJECT

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