8 Easy Perennials For Summer Color In Your Coastal Garden

These Easy Perennials are suitable for flower beds, large rock gardens or even containers.

This selection of perennial garden flowers adds beautiful color to your garden without much work! A lot of perennial plants need minimal care and yet contribute loads of pretty flowers to a garden.

Check this page for the basic maintenance tips for perennial flowers. But don't worry...most of these plants are really low maintenance and they won't take up much of your gardening time. Plant these in flower beds, mixed borders or large containers for great summer color in your garden. They will work even in an exposed coastal garden!

Here is a selection of great easy to grow plants for flower beds and pots:

8 Easy Perennials For Summer Color

Dahlias

Dahlia flowers come in many sizes and nearly any color. They add spectacular summer color. Some varieties have dark, nearly black foliage which really sets off the flowers. Plant them in a sunny spot with reasonably good soil and drainage. Choose compact varieties for windy places. These are also great flowering plants for pots.

If you have problems with slugs and snails in your garden you should make sure that the plants are protected in the spring when they start coming up. This is the time when they are most prone to damage from slugs. Check here for tips on organic slug control.

In areas with ground frosts over longer periods, the tubers have to be lifted in the autumn and stored frost free. In mild coastal areas, they can be left in the ground.

Perennial Violas

These are one of my favorites! They are very similar to the annual Violas but grow every year. The flowers appear during spring and summer and sometimes even into the autumn. They are sweetly scented.

Colors of perennial Violas range from blue, speckled blue and white, yellow, white and even black! These easy perennials are great in flower beds, rockeries and in containers or window-boxes.

Centaurea montana - Perennial Cornflower

This pretty blue flowering perennial grows about 50 cm high and wide. The flowers appear in late spring and summer and attract beneficial insects to your garden. The silvery-green foliage is deciduous.

Centaurea deals very well with seaside conditions. Plant them in a sunny position and well-drained soil.

Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve' - Shrubby Wallflower

This incredible plant flowers nearly all year round if you plant it in a sunny spot. The purple flowers appear from early spring until late autumn. The silvery blue-green foliage is evergreen and forms a small bushy plant that deals well with coastal conditions.

The slightly scented flowers attract beneficial insects. Trim the bush lightly after the flowers have finished to keep the plant bushy and compact.

Erysimums are suitable for flower or gravel beds, rockeries, and containers.

Astilbe

If you have a spot in your garden where the soil is boggy and wet and you just can't grow anything there, try some Astilbes! This colorful perennial flower deals with boggy and wet soil conditions very well. Size varies depending on variety between 50-75 cm height and width.

Astilbes are available in pink, white or red colors. The foliage is either green or dark and shiny. Astilbes are deciduous and lose all their foliage in the winter. This is also a good plant for seaside gardens.

Sedum telephium

Sedums like a well-drained soil and a sunny spot. The red or pink flowers appear in late summer and attract lots of bees and butterflies.

The succulent-like leaves are silvery green. Some cultivars of these easy perennials have dark red foliage - very attractive! These flowering perennial plants cope well with poor dry soils and seaside conditions.

Alstroemeria - Peruvian Lily

Alstroemerias are beautiful clump-forming perennials and flower during summer and autumn. There are lots of different cultivars that vary greatly in size and flower color. The larger varieties grow up to 1 m high, compact forms up 40 cm.

If you want to grow Alstroemerias in a container choose one of the compact forms. Peruvian Lilies can have pink, red, orange, yellow or white flowers that are also great cut flowers.

Lilium - Lily Bulbs

Lilies can be grown in containers or flower beds with good soil and drainage. They produce magnificent flowers during the summer. Most Lily varieties have strongly scented flowers. You can get them in pink, yellow, red or white. Height also varies with the variety.

Choose the more compact forms for containers and windy places. They deal surprisingly well with seaside conditions though. Lilies are deciduous and die back for the winter.

What would you like to see next?

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.