Plant These 14 Perennials In July Once—Enjoy Free Flowers Every Year

A woman named Carol wrote to me a few months back. She said she had spent close to $400 on annuals over the last three summers, and every single fall she watched all of it die and vanish. And every spring she was back at the same nursery counter buying the exact same flats all over again. Then her neighbor gave her three small divisions of a purple coneflower she had split off her own established clump, and Carol planted them in July, of all months, because that is when the gift arrived. By the following June, that neighbor's leftover scraps had turned into a bed of nearly 20 plants, and Carol has not bought an annual since. That is the entire idea behind this list. Every plant on it does the opposite of what an annual does. It comes back on its own. It spreads on its own. And within a couple of seasons, it hands you extra plants for absolutely nothing. July is a strange, wonderful month for planting perennials, and almost nobody talks about it that way. Most gardening advice you will find is written for spring, back when the soil is still cold and the nursery shelves are just being restocked. But July gives a potted perennial something spring cannot offer. Warm, active soil that pushes roots outward fast and a full stretch of growing season still ahead of it before the ground cools down again. Every plant on this list is sold as a mature, rooted specimen in a container this time of year, which means it is not waiting around for anything to wake up. Get one into the ground this month, keep it watered while it settles in, and it will be pressing new roots into the surrounding soil within days, all while you are still out enjoying the long evenings of summer. Before I get into the list, I want to ask you for one small thing. If any part of what I share here saves you a trip to the garden center or keeps a plant from dying on you this year, consider following this channel and turning on notifications. It costs you nothing, and it means these kinds of practical, plain-spoken gardening ideas keep landing in front of you every week instead of getting buried by everything else out there. Now, let's get into what actually belongs in your garden this month and why each one earns its place. It helps to understand exactly why a perennial behaves so differently from an annual in the first place, because that difference is what makes this whole list worth your time. An annual completes its entire life cycle in a single season. It sprouts, it flowers, it sets seed, and then the first hard frost ends it for good, which means every spring you are effectively starting from zero and paying full price all over again. A perennial takes a longer, patient approach instead. Its roots survive the winter underground even when the visible top growth dies back completely, and each spring, it draws on the energy already stored in those roots to come back larger and fuller than it was the year before. Give it two or three seasons, and most of the plants on this list are ready to be lifted, divided, and turned into multiple new plants, which is the entire mechanism behind a garden that grows richer every year instead of one that resets to nothing each winter. Annuals certainly have their place for quick, temporary color in a pot on the porch, but for the backbone of a bed you intend to enjoy for the next decade, perennials are where the real value sits. Purple coneflower takes the top spot because it does more work for less effort than almost anything else you could plant. Echinacea purpurea is hardy from Ouzda Zone 3 all the way to Zone 9, which covers the overwhelming majority of gardens across this country. The flowers are large, daisy-shaped, and held on sturdy upright stems, colored in that deep rosy magenta that seems to glow a little in late afternoon light. At the center of each bloom sits a raised, spiny cone in warm copper and orange, and that cone is where the bees gather from sunrise until the light fades. Coneflower blooms for months, carrying color through the hottest, driest weeks of summer, right when a lot of other perennials start to look worn out and thin. Here is the part few people mention. When the petals finally drop in fall, leave the seed heads standing instead of cutting them back. Goldfinches will cling sideways to those dried cones and feed on them straight through the first frosts, which gives you a built-in bird feeder without spending a dime on seed or a plastic feeder from the hardware store. The plant also self-sows lightly around its own base, so the following spring, you will likely find a few volunteer seedlings you never planted yourself. Every three or four years, lift an established clump and split it apart with a sharp spade, and one plant becomes four or five plants in a single afternoon. At current nursery prices of $10 to $15 a pot, that afternoon of dividing is worth real money in your pocket. From there, it makes sense to talk about Black-Eyed Susan, since it shares nearly the same growing conditions and tends to bloom right alongside coneflower in most beds. Rudbeckia hirta and its close relatives are hardy roughly from zone 3 through 9, and they bring that unmistakable bright gold, daisy-formed flower with a dark chocolate-brown center that almost everyone recognizes on sight, even people who have never planted a single thing in their life. It flowers from midsummer clear into fall, and it shrugs off heat and dry stretches with barely a complaint. What makes it especially well-suited to a July planting is how quickly a young plant settles in and starts blooming that same season, so you are not left waiting until next year to see any color at all. Deadhead the spent flowers regularly, and the plant keeps pushing out fresh buds instead of slowing down. Left alone, it reseeds itself generously, and because several popular varieties cross-pollinate with one another right there in the garden, the seedlings that show up on their own often turn out slightly different from the parent plant, sometimes in wonderfully surprising and attractive ways. Divide an established clump every couple of years in spring, and you will have more than enough extra plants to fill in bare patches or hand off to a neighbor. Russian sage belongs on this list for an entirely different reason than the first two, and if deer or rabbits have turned your beds into their personal buffet, this is worth reading closely. Salvia yangi, the plant most of us still call by its older name, Russian sage, is hardy from zone 4 through 9. It grows tall and airy, with silvery, finely cut foliage and slender wands of small lavender-blue flowers that seem to float above the rest of the border. Wash against the leaves, and you will catch a sharp, clean, herbal scent right away, and that scent is exactly why deer and rabbits tend to leave it alone. They smell it before they ever get close enough to take a bite, and they simply move along to somebody else's yard. Unlike a spray repellent that washes off in the next rainstorm and needs constant reapplying, this plant carries its own defense in its leaves every day of the season, with no work required from you at all. It blooms for months on very little supplemental water, once it has settled in, and it actually prefers lean, poor soil over rich, heavily fertilized beds. Cut the whole plant back hard in early spring, almost to the ground, and it returns fuller and taller with every year that follows. Daylilies deserve a spot on this list simply because almost no other perennial gives you a better return for the money spent up front. Hemerocallis varieties are hardy from about zone 3 through 9, and one clump planted this month will, within two or three seasons, be large enough to divide into a half-dozen new clumps or more. The trumpet-shaped flowers come in nearly every warm shade you could ask for, from soft butter yellow to deep burgundy. And while any single bloom only lasts a single day, a mature plant produces so many buds in succession that the overall display can stretch across several weeks. Daylilies tolerate poor soil, occasional neglect, and a wide range of light conditions, which is part of why you will spot them thriving along old farmhouses and roadside ditches where nobody has tended a garden in decades. Every three to five years, dig up the clump, pull it apart by hand, and replant the divisions in fresh soil. You will end up with far more plants than you started with, and each one is ready to bloom again the very next season. Sedum, sometimes labeled stonecrop or sold under the older name autumn joy, might be the single most forgiving plant on this entire list. Hylotelephium varieties are hardy from zone 3 through 9, with thick, succulent, blue-green leaves on stems that hold up wide, flat clusters of tiny flowers. Those clusters open a soft, dusty pink in late summer and then slowly deepen into brick red and finally a coppery rust as autumn arrives, which means it saves some of its best color for the very end of the season, right when most other plants have already finished for the year. Butterflies and the last bees of the season swarm it heavily, right at the moment they need the nectar most. This plant is close to impossible to lose. Snap off a single stem, push the cut end into bare soil, water it once, and within a few weeks, it has rooted into an entirely new plant on its own, no rooting hormone or special equipment required. It wants poor, fast-draining soil and full sun, and the leaner you keep the growing conditions, the sturdier and more upright it stands. Leave the dried flower heads standing through winter, since they catch frost and light snow beautifully, giving your beds real structure during the coldest, most colorless months of the year. Threadleaf coreopsis moves at a different pace than most of the plants already mentioned, because it barely takes a break all season long. Coreopsis verticillata is hardy from zone 4 through 9, and it produces small, star-shaped flowers in cheerful yellow and gold from early summer straight through the first frost. The foliage is fine, almost feathery, which keeps the whole plant looking light and graceful, even during the short gaps between bloom cycles. Here is a trick worth trying for yourself. When the plant starts to look a little tired in the middle of summer, shear it back by roughly a third with a pair of garden shears. Within two weeks, it rebounds with an entirely fresh wave of flowers, essentially giving you two full bloom cycles from one plant in a single season. It handles heat, drought, and thin, rocky soil that would send fussier plants into a slow decline, and it spreads gradually through underground stems, gradually forming a low golden carpet that crowds out weeds as it fills in the bare ground around it. Yarrow belongs right alongside Coreopsis, because it thrives in the exact same hot, dry, neglected conditions and asks for almost nothing in return. Achillia millefolium is hardy from zone 3 through 9, with flat clusters of tiny flowers in yellow, white, soft pink, or a rich terracotta, held above finely divided, almost fern-like foliage that stays attractive even when nothing is blooming. It flowers from early summer well into fall, and it is remarkably drought tolerant once it has settled into the garden, making it a strong match for anyone who does not want to be out there watering every evening. Some varieties spread by underground rhizomes at a fairly quick pace, so it pays to keep them deadheaded if you want to slow down how readily they reseed themselves throughout the bed. Others, especially the newer dwarf hybrids in soft pinks and corals, spread far more slowly and behave more like a well-mannered clump. Either way, division every few years keeps the plant vigorous and hands you extra material to fill gaps elsewhere in the garden at no additional cost. Catmint has earned a permanent place in more gardens than almost any other perennial on this list, and once you grow it, you will understand exactly why. Nepeta faseni is hardy from zone 3 through 8, forming soft mounds of grey-green foliage topped with countless small lavender-blue flowers from late spring all the way through fall. Bees cover it from the moment it opens until the very last bloom fades, and deer and rabbits generally avoid it for the same aromatic reasons they avoid Russian sage. It tolerates heat, drought, and poor soil with ease, and when the first flush of bloom starts to fade, a hard shearing back by half brings on a second, nearly equal round of flowers within a couple of weeks. Walker's low is the variety most professional landscapers reach for, since it holds its shape well and rarely flops open in the middle, the way some older varieties tend to do. Established clumps can be divided every 3 or 4 years, and the pieces you separate off transplant easily into new corners of the yard. If you have made it this far, I want to say something directly to you. You are clearly not just passing time on this video. You are the kind of gardener who actually goes outside and puts these ideas into practice, and that is exactly who this channel is built for. Following along costs nothing, and it makes sure the next video on this exact topic actually reaches you, instead of getting lost in the shuffle of everything else out there. Now let's shift towards shade for a moment, because not every corner of your yard gets full sun, and two of the strongest plants on this whole list are built specifically for the spots where flowers generally refuse to grow at all. Coral bells, or Heuchera, are hardy from about zone 4 through 9, and while most people plant for flowers, this one earns its keep through foliage instead. The leaves come in colors that sound almost invented until you see them growing in person. Lime green, warm caramel, deep wine red, near-black purple, and silver-veined patterns that shift and catch the light as you walk past them. It forms a tidy, rounded mound that stays attractive from spring straight through fall, and in milder climates, it even holds its color right through winter. In early summer, it sends up slender, airy stalks of small bell-shaped flowers that hummingbirds visit regularly throughout the day. It prefers part shade and decent drainage, which makes it a natural companion for hostas in those tricky spots that catch a little morning sun and then sit in shade for the rest of the afternoon. Lift and divide the clump every few years, and you multiply your color for free one afternoon at a time. Speaking of hostas, this is the plant that finally solves the shady, root-filled patch beneath a large tree where everything else has slowly thinned out and quietly given up. Hosta varieties are broadly hardy from zone 3 through 9, and they were essentially built for low light. Broad, overlapping leaves in deep blue-green, glowing chartreuse, or crisp white and green variegation build a lush, layered look in exactly the places where sun-loving flowers cannot compete for space or light. In midsummer, slender stalks rise up bearing pale lavender or white bell-shaped flowers that hummingbirds happily visit on their rounds. Here is the value most people never mention out loud. A single mature hosta can be lifted, sliced apart cleanly with a sharp spade, and turned into 6, 8, or even 10 new plants in one afternoon of work. Buy one good hosta a single time, and within a handful of years, you can edge every shaded bed on your property without spending another dollar on that particular plant. Watch for slugs after a wet spring, water it while it gets established, and then largely step back and let the plant do the rest of the work on its own. Bee Balm, or Monarda, brings hummingbirds in like almost nothing else on this list, and it is worth planting for that reason alone. Hardy from around zone 4 through 9 it produces shaggy, tubular flowers in shades of red, purple, and soft lavender that sit atop aromatic foliage, and hummingbirds will return to visit it repeatedly throughout the day once it begins blooming in earnest. Many of the newer varieties have been bred with improved resistance to powdery mildew, which used to be this plant's biggest weakness in humid climates. Even if you do see a bit of mildew on the leaves by late summer, it rarely affects the flowers themselves, and the plant is usually tucked in among enough neighboring foliage that the issue barely shows from a distance. It spreads by shallow underground stems that are easy to pull up if it wanders further than you would like, so there is little real risk of it becoming a problem in a mixed bed. Blazing Star closes out the sun-loving portion of this list, and it saves its best trick for the heart of the season. Liatris spicata is hardy clear across zone 3 through 9, and it does something almost no other plant in a typical garden does. It blooms from the top of the spike downward, opening gradually like a firework playing out in slow motion, while nearly everything else around it opens from the bottom up instead. Those tall, slender purple spikes punch straight through the rounder, mounding shapes of the rest of the border, and they are a genuine magnet for monarch butterflies and native bees throughout the season. It grows from a small underground corm that quietly multiplies year after year, so a single clump becomes thicker and more dramatic with each passing season, without any extra effort required on your part. It tolerates poor, dry soil without complaint and makes an excellent cut flower that holds its shape and color indoors for well over a week at a time. Joe Pieweed answers the question almost every gardener eventually asks about the low, damp corner of the yard where the ground stays soggy after every rain and most plants simply rot and disappear within a season. Eutropium is hardy from zone 3 through 9, and in late summer, it rises into a tall, commanding presence topped with enormous, dusky mauve-pink flower domes that you can spot from clear across the yard. On a warm afternoon, those flower heads practically vanish beneath a moving blanket of butterflies. Swallowtails, monarchs, and fat bumblebees work it relentlessly because it ranks among the richest late-season nectar sources a native plant can offer at the exact moment pollinators need to fuel up before the season ends. Look for Gateway if you want that same visual impact without the towering height of the wild form, or Baby Joe for a wonderfully compact version suited to a smaller bed. It spreads outward steadily through underground rhizomes, gradually filling a wet, ignored corner with height, movement, and life within a couple of seasons. As a North American native, it is built for regional heat and humidity and shrugs off conditions that leave imported plants wilting. Leave the seed heads standing through winter for the birds and for the structure they add to an otherwise bare bed. Then cut the plant back in early spring as fresh growth begins pushing up from the base. Balloonflower rounds out this list with something a little different. Pure charm and a bit of quiet novelty that tends to catch visitors off guard. Platycodon grandiflorus is hardy from zone 3 through 8 and its buds are the real attraction before the flowers even open. Puffing up into small, perfectly rounded balloons that eventually split open into star-shaped bells in shades of blue-purple, soft pink, or white, grandchildren tend to enjoy gently squeezing the unopened buds, which is a small, harmless bit of garden theater that daylily and coneflower simply cannot offer. It blooms from midsummer into early fall, prefers full sun to light shade, and asks for very little beyond well-drained soil once it is established. It is slower to emerge in spring than most perennials, often waiting until the soil is thoroughly warm, so mark its spot clearly the first year so you do not accidentally dig into the dormant crown before it wakes up. Established clumps resent being disturbed too often, so rather than dividing this one on the same schedule as the rest of the list, let it grow into a fuller, showier mass over time, and simply collect its seed pods in fall if you would like to start new plants elsewhere in the garden at no cost at all. Once you get to the nursery, a word about choosing healthy specimens matters, since a strong start makes every other step on this list far easier. Look for a plant with even, consistent color across its foliage, rather than yellowing or browning at the edges, and gently slide it partway out of its pot if the staff will allow it. Roots that are white or light tan and only lightly wrapped around the inside of the pot are a good sign. Roots that are dark, mushy, or so tightly circled that they have formed a solid mass usually mean the plant has been sitting in that container far too long and will struggle to establish properly once it goes into the ground. A slightly smaller, healthier plant will almost always outperform a larger, root-bound one within a single season. It is also worth thinking about how these plants will look together once they fill in, rather than planting each one in isolation. Coneflower and Black-Eyed Susan share nearly identical bloom times and pair naturally with the airy purple-blue of Russian Sage or Catmint planted just in front of them since the finer texture keeps the bolder daisy shapes from feeling heavy. Sedum and Yarrow tolerate the same lean, dry soil so they can share a border without one outcompeting the other for water. Hostas and Coral Bells belong together in shade for the same reason since their contrasting leaf textures and colors do more visual work side by side than either one manages alone. None of this needs to be complicated. Grouping plants by similar light and water needs is really the only rule that matters and everything else comes down to personal taste. Climate plays a role here too and it is worth being honest about that instead of pretending one calendar fits every backyard equally. Gardeners in the cooler northern states and higher elevations generally have an easier time with a July planting since summer heat is milder and the risk of a young root system cooking in the top few inches of soil is lower. In the deep south, the desert southwest and other regions where July regularly brings triple digit afternoons the same plants can still succeed but they lean more heavily on the watering and shade advice covered here and an early morning or late evening planting time becomes less of a suggestion and more of a requirement. If you are gardening somewhere especially hot and dry this month do not let that discourage you from planting. Just be a little more attentive with the hose for the first few weeks and everything on this list will still reward you by next season. Before you head out to the nursery there are a few general rules that decide whether everything on this list thrives for you or merely survives and it makes more sense to cover them once here than to repeat the same points for every single plant. Deal with drainage before you plant anything else. Waterlogged soil kills more perennials than heat, drought and pests combined. Dig a hole about a foot deep fill it with water and check back in an hour. If that water is still sitting there work coarse grit and compost into the surrounding soil before you plant or build the bed up above the wet ground entirely so the roots never have to sit in standing water. Water deeply and consistently for the first 2-3 weeks after planting regardless of which perennial you choose. A July planting has warm soil working in its favor but that same warmth also means the top few inches of ground dry out faster than they would back in spring. Soak the root zone thoroughly rather than lightly sprinkling the surface and check the soil with a finger before assuming it needs more water than it actually does. Choose your planting time within the day carefully. Early morning or early evening are far kinder to a new transplant than the middle of a hot afternoon since the plant has cooler hours ahead to settle in before facing direct sun and heat. If a heat wave is forecast for the days right after you plant a light shade cloth or even an old bed sheet propped over the new plant for a few afternoons can make a real difference in how quickly it recovers from transplant shock. Mulch generously once everything is in the ground. A 2-3 inch layer of shredded bark, compost or straw keeps soil moisture more consistent, moderates soil temperature during the hottest part of summer and cuts down significantly on the weeding you will need to do later in the season. Keep the mulch pulled back slightly from the base of each plant's crown so moisture does not sit directly against the stem and invite rot. Go easy on fertilizer since most of what grows on this list actually prefers to be a little underfed rather than overfed. A layer of compost worked into the soil at planting time followed by another light layer each spring covers nearly everything these plants need for the whole season. Heavy doses of high nitrogen fertilizer tend to push out soft floppy growth and fewer flowers particularly on sun loving plants like Russian Sage, Sedum and Yarrow which actually perform their best in soil that would be considered too poor for a vegetable garden. Save the richer feeding for hostas and hydrangeas elsewhere in the yard and let the plants on this list get by on considerably less. Treat division as free money because that is exactly what it is. Nearly every plant on this list can be lifted and split every few years and each piece you separate off is a complete blooming plant that cost you nothing beyond one morning and a sharp spade. At current nursery prices one mature clump can hand you 50 to 150 dollars worth of brand new plants in a single afternoon of digging. Match the plant to the spot instead of fighting the spot to fit the plant. The dry sun baked corner the deep shade under a tree the low area that stays damp after rain every one of those so called problem areas is the ideal home for something on this list. Once you quit forcing the wrong plant into the wrong place your garden turns from a constant uphill battle into something that largely takes care of itself. Here is where all of this leaves you. You now have 14 perennials that will start filling in your beds before summer is even finished and then keep spreading and multiplying for free year after year without you ever needing to start over from scratch. None of this requires special equipment a large budget or years of experience behind you. It mostly requires picking the right plant for the right spot watering it faithfully for the first few weeks and then getting out of its way and letting it do what it was built to do all on its own. Carol the woman I mentioned back at the start tells me now that her whole approach to the yard changed once she stopped thinking of plants as something she buys each spring and started thinking of them as something she grows once and then simply shares divides and multiplies from there on. That shift in thinking is really the heart of everything covered here. If even one of these 14 is going into your ground this month let me know which one down in the comments along with the state or growing zone you are gardening in. I read every comment that comes in and they honestly shape which plants and topics I choose to cover next. This is your garden and July is your season to make it work harder for you than it ever has before.