Are you a beginner gardener looking for flowers you can grow easily and with success? Or maybe you are not so inexperienced, but you need some “no hassle” and “safe” flowers?
Low maintenance gardens are a big thing now! Welcome to the right place then, because this article is just about easy flowers to plant when you’re first starting out.
There are a wide range of flowers that even inexperienced beginners can grow. What you need are flowers that need little care, that are naturally strong and that they adapt to your local conditions. As a consequence, most of these flowers come from temperate regions.
Yes, because tropical flowers are usually more delicate.
To simplify matters, we rounded up 20 easy-to-grow, no-fuss flowers that are especially perfect for the beginner gardener, along with our best tips for keeping them healthy so they will fill your flower bed, a porch container or window box with color and fragrance.
11 Easiest Flowers To Plants Your First Garden
Get ready to grow flowers with little effort and great results then! We did all the hard work for you, in fact. Here are the 20 easiest flowers that anyone can grow, even if your thumb is all but green.
Choose one from our selection, follow the few instructions, sit back, relax and watch it bloom then!
1: Daffodil (Narcissus spp.)
Daffodils are so easy to grow but also so beautiful! In fact, they will grow spontaneously in many areas, and all you need to do is plant some bulbs in your garden and then literally forget about them! They will literally propagate spontaneously and you will get more and more as years go by.
Just sit down, wait and enjoy their colors and amazing smell!
There are many varieties of daffodils you can choose from. Go for natural looking daffodils like large cupped daffodils, small cupped daffodils, poet’s daffodils or Tazzetta daffodils. These are the easiest to grow, and they will not disappoint you!
Hardiness: usually USDA 3 to 8 depending in the variety.
Light exposure: full Sun, dappled shade, light shade or partial shade.
Blooming season: spring.
Size: maximum 2 feet tall (60 cm) and 2 to 3 inches in spread (5 to 7.5 cm).
Soil requirements: very adaptable to most types of soil as long as well drained (loam, sand, chalk or clay). Keep moist in spring. They are, however, drought resistant.
2: Day Lily (Hemerocallis spp.)
Lilies are picky and hard to grow, but day lilies are super easy! They will form large clumps of beautiful flowers that last one day each. But they are so many and they keep coming, so you will have them for the whole of summer!
They look like lilies in fact, and you can have them in virtually all warm colors, from light yellow to deep purple! And they come back year after year…
Grow them from seedlings. Just plant a small clump and it will soon turn into a massive one. They can fill in a border very quickly.
And when you want to share them with your neighbors, just cut off a few plants when they are not in bloom and off they go to their new home!
Hardiness: USDA zones 3 to 9.
Light exposure: full Sun, dappled shade, light shade or partial shade.
Blooming season: summer, sometimes into fall.
Size: up to 3 feet tall and in spread (90 cm); clumps can become very big.
Soil requirements: adaptable to well drained loam, clay or sandy soil with pH from fairly acidic to slightly alkaline.
3: Bearded Iris (Iris Germanica)
Bearded iris is the easiest iris variety you can ever find! It will grow virtually anywhere, in dry land but also in wet land.
It is cold hardy and evergreen, so you will have its beautiful sword shaped leaves all year round. And you should not worry about blooms either. They will come every late spring no fail!
There are so many different varieties with colors that go from pastel (even light blue) to intense and velvety reds and purples. Variegated flowers are also common and they are all large and showy.
Hardiness: USDA zones 3 to 9.
Light exposure: full Sun,
Blooming season: spring and summer.Size: 3 feet tall (90 cm) and 2 feet in spread (60 cm).
Soil requirements: it prefers loam and sand, but clay loam is good too. It likes it well drained but tolerates drought. They saying goes that it likes “wrt feet but dry knees”… the roots can grow in wet soil but the leaves need to be dry.
4: Columbine (Aquilegia spp.)
Columbines are very delicate looking but also original looking flowers, and they are also very easy to grow. With their heads with an internal cup of petals surrounded by outer petals often of a different color, columbines are really interesting.
They are ideal for dappled shade places, as they have that “temperate forest “ look… The colors are so many, white, blue, yellow, red and pink in all combinations…
Unlike the other flowers we have seen so far, you can easily grow columbines from seed as well. You are better off using seeding trays in case. Alternatively, plant some seedlings and they will start spreading all over your garden immediately.
Hardiness: USDA zones 3 to 9.
Light exposure: full Sun, dappled shade, light shade or partial shade.
Blooming season: spring and summer.
Size: 2 feet tall and in spread (60 cm).
Soil requirements: adaptable to most types of soil, loam, clay, chalk or sand, as long as well drained.
5: Ornamental Onion (Allium spp.)
Onions are not just great food, some varieties have very beautiful brightly colored flowers. These come on top of long stems and they form a globular inflorescences of many star shaped flowers.
These can be white, blue, lilac, purple or at times have some green in them. They will look like glitter balls gloating above the foliage.
Just plant the bulbs and your ornamental onions will do all the rest for you. Given their geometrical shape, they also adapt to formal gardens; they look striking in urban gravel gardens in fact, or “garden rooms” if that’s your cup of tea.
Hardiness: USDA zones 4 to 10.
Light exposure: full Sun.
Blooming season: late spring to early summer.
Size: up to 4 feet tall (120 cm) and 3 in spread (90 cm).
Soil requirements: adaptable to well drained loam, clay, chalk or sand based soil.
6: Marigold (Tagetes spp.)
Marigold is a very strong little flower that gives a lot and asks so very little! Its yellow to orange flowers can be single or double, according to the species or variety, but they are always many, long lasting and very brightly colored.
They grow on top of finely textured dark foliage, which makes them stand out perfectly well.
Marigold also has a special quality: it keeps insects at a distance, including mosquitoes! Given its small size, this makes it perfect for window boxes or small borders around your house.
Hardiness: USDA 2 to 11.
Light exposure: full Sun.Blooming season: summer and fall.
Size: 1 to 4 feet tall (30 to 120 cm) and 1 to 2 feet in spread (30 to 60 cm).
Soil requirements: it likes well drained loam, clay or sand. It is drought resistant and heavy clay tolerant.
7: Morning Glory (Ipomoea spp.)
Bell shaped morning glory flowers come in many colors on tender vines with hear shaped leaves. They are perfect for a natural looking garden, in borders but also to climb on fences and trellises.
You can get large ones, with flowers that reach 5 inches across (12 cm) or smaller ones. Famous for their blue and violet colors, there are also white and purple ones.
You can grow morning glory vines straight from seed. They are very string and adaptable.
However, unlike the other flowers so far, morning glory is an annual; keep some of the seeds in the fall, and start again. However it will also self seed.
Hardiness: USDA zones 2 to 11.
Light exposure: full Sun.
Blooming season: summer and fall.
Size: up to 10 feet tall (3 meters).
Soil requirements: adaptable to loam,lay chalk or sand based soil as long as well drained and kept moist.
8: Heather (Erica spp.)
Heather fills with massive blooms cold, wind swept and nutrient poor moors… You can guess that it’s not an easy plant to ruin.
And in fact it is one of the strongest little green friends you can grow. Well, they are green unless they are in bloom. Then they turn totally pink, mauve, white, magenta, or even purple, like carpets of small flowers.
Heather is excellent as groundcover, but also for rock gardens, natural looking flower beds and wild looking areas. It really needs very little maintenance but it blooms for months. And you will get flowers in winter too!
Hardiness: USDA zones 5 to 8.
Light exposure: full Sun.
Blooming season: winter and spring.
Size: 6 inches tall (15 cm) and 1 to 2 feet in spread (30 to 60 cm).
Soil requirements: well drained loam, clay or sandy soil with acidic to neutral pH.
9: Sweet Peas (Lathyrus odoratus)
Do you want a massive bloom with very little effort at all? Try sweet peas! They have the most amazing colors, basically all the range of the rainbow, in all combinations.
Each vine will produce an infinity of flowers, starting in spring and going on and on, and on and on… till the first frost! The spectacle is fantastic.
You can literally seed the peas in a tray, then move them to full soil as soon as they reach 6 to 8 inches tall (15 to 20 cm).
Sweet peas too are annuals, so keep some of the little pods (they are actual peas) for next year!
Hardiness: USDA zones 2 to 11.
Light exposure: full Sun to partial shade.
Blooming season: from spring to fall.
Size: up to 8 or 10 feet tall (2.4 to 3 meters).
Soil requirements: it prefers loam or sandy loam; keep it moist but well drained.
10: Fuchsia (Fuchsia spp.)
For a perennial shrub with many, showy and unusual flowers year on year, fuchsia plants are easy to grow. The flowers can be of a range of colors, often variegated:
white, red, orange or purple are very popular. They will hang face down from the branches of the shrubs, and the blooms can last till very late in the season.
You can propagate fuchsias easily by cuttings and once the plant has established, you only need to give it basic maintenance, maybe cutting dead or sick branches in the spring.
Hardiness: it depends on the variety, but usually USDA zones 8 to 11.
Light exposure: full Sun to partial shade.
Blooming season: from early summer to fall.
Size: some species are small (up to 2 or 3 feet tall, or 60 to 90 cm). Others are taller, up to 10 feet tall (3 meters).
Soil requirements: adaptable to loam, clay, chalk or sandy soil as long as well drained and watered regularly.
11: Carnation (Dianthus spp.)
Carnation is an easy to grow generous flower; some species are the most beautifully scented flowers in the whole world. Short, garden varieties, also called “pinks” are particularly easy to grow.
They will grace borders and beds all year round with their beautiful foliage and turn them alive with ling and bright blooms.
You can grow them from seed, using a seeding tray. Alternatively, cuttings and clump division are also common ways of propagating these amazing flowers. Some are even drought resistant, so, perfect for many non labor intensive gardens.
- Hardiness: USDA zones 5 to 9.
- Light exposure: full Sun.
- Blooming season: from spring to the end of summer.
- Size: it depends on the species, but pinks are usually about 1 foot tall and in spread (30 cm).
- Soil requirements: well drained loam, chalk or sand based soil.
