Struggling to keep your garden alive through dry spells? These 15 drought-tolerant plants thrive with minimal water, bringing beauty and resilience to any landscape.
From lavender’s aromatic blooms to yucca’s bold architecture, these water-wise champions will keep your garden thriving while cutting back on your water bill. Perfect for sunny borders, rock gardens, or low-maintenance designs.
1. Lavender
This Mediterranean beauty brings both fragrance and color to dry gardens. Its silvery-green foliage and purple blooms create a stunning visual display while requiring minimal water to thrive.
Even during extended dry periods, lavender continues to produce its signature aromatic flowers, making it perfect for borders, rock gardens, or standalone focal points. For best results, plant in full sun with well-draining soil.
2. Sedum (Stonecrop)
These succulent superstars are practically indestructible, tolerating everything from intense heat to freezing temperatures. Their fleshy leaves store water efficiently, while their star-shaped flowers attract beneficial pollinators.
Sedums can serve as ground covers or upright garden features in various sizes and colors. Their low-maintenance nature makes them ideal for rock gardens and green roofs.
3. Russian Sage
Dramatic spiky blue flowers make this Asian native a showstopper in late summer gardens. Its silver-gray foliage adds texture and interest even when not in bloom.
This statuesque beauty grows 4-5 feet tall and thrives on neglect, making it perfect for dry borders and curbside plantings. Its long blooming period provides reliable color when other plants start to fade.
4. Yarrow
This versatile North American native adapts to challenging conditions, from poor soil to drought. Its flat-topped flower clusters, in shades of yellow, white, pink, orange, and red, attract butterflies and other pollinators.
Yarrow’s feathery foliage adds texture to the garden, while its strong stems make excellent cut flowers. Weekly watering during summer encourages the best flower production, but it can survive on much less.
5. Blanket Flower
Native to western U.S. prairies, these cheerful bloomers produce bright flowers in red, orange, coral, and yellow hues. Their compact mounding habit makes them perfect for rock gardens and curbside strips.
These prairie natives thrive in lean soil and full sun, continuing to bloom throughout the summer heat. Their seedheads provide food for songbirds, making them valuable for wildlife gardens.
6. Bearded Iris
These classic garden favorites store moisture and nutrients in their rhizomes, allowing them to weather dry spells easily. Their dramatic flowers bring early-season color to the garden.
Bearded irises prefer dry conditions to damp ones, making them ideal for well-draining slopes and sunny borders. Ensure the plants get full sun for the best flowering display.
7. Catmint
With its gorgeous spikes of blue and purple flowers, catmint brings long-lasting color to dry gardens. This tough plant thrives on neglect while providing valuable nectar for pollinators.
In full sun and well-draining soil, catmint can survive extended periods of drought. A deep soaking every 10-12 days keeps the blooms fresh, but the plant remains resilient even with less water.
8. Butterfly Bush
This vibrant shrub delivers continuous summer blooms even during prolonged dry spells. Once established, butterfly bush requires minimal care while attracting numerous pollinators.
Its long-blooming nature and drought tolerance make it an excellent choice for water-wise gardens. When watering is necessary, do so thoroughly to encourage deep root growth.
9. Yucca
These architectural beauties bring dramatic form to dry gardens with their sword-like leaves and towering flower spikes. Native to arid regions, yuccas have evolved to thrive in challenging conditions. Their deep root systems allow them to access water far below the surface, making them incredibly drought-tolerant.
The white, bell-shaped flowers create stunning vertical interest and attract night-pollinating moths.
10. Lamb’s Ears
This garden favorite’s soft, silvery foliage creates a tactile experience while naturally conserving water. Its fuzzy leaves reflect sunlight and trap moisture, making it perfectly adapted to dry conditions.
Lamb’s Ears makes excellent border plants, and ground covers growing in neat mounds. Their drought tolerance increases once established, and they can spread to form attractive carpets in sunny locations.
11. Agastache (Hyssop)
These aromatic perennials produce spikes of tubular flowers that pollinators can’t resist. Their mint-scented foliage adds sensory appeal while remaining drought-tolerant throughout the growing season.
Available in various colors, from purple to orange, Agastache provides reliable summer blooms with minimal water requirements. Their upright habit makes them perfect for the middle or back of borders.
12. Salvia
These sage relatives offer an incredible range of colors and sizes while maintaining excellent drought tolerance. From compact varieties to tall statement plants, salvias adapt well to dry conditions.
Their aromatic foliage naturally deters deer and rabbits, while their long-blooming flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Most varieties perform best with occasional deep watering rather than frequent light sprinkles.
13. Verbena
Low-growing varieties create colorful carpets, while tall types add vertical interest to dry gardens. Their clusters of small flowers bloom continuously through summer and into fall with minimal water needs.
These tough plants gracefully handle heat and drought, making them perfect for rock gardens and sunny slopes. Their spreading habit helps suppress weeds while providing valuable nectar for pollinators.
14. Lantana
This heat-loving plant produces clusters of multicolored flowers that glow in the summer sunshine. Once established, lantana’s woody stems and deep roots help it survive extended dry periods.
Its trailing varieties work beautifully in hanging baskets and container gardens, while upright forms make informal hedges. The flowers change color as they age, creating a kaleidoscope effect in the garden.
15. Artemisia
With its silvery foliage and aromatic leaves, artemisia brings subtle elegance to dry gardens. These tough plants naturally conserve water through their silver-gray coloring and fine-textured foliage.
Perfect for adding contrast to flower borders, artemisia maintains its beauty even during the hottest months.
Its drought tolerance makes it an excellent choice for xeriscaping and low-maintenance landscapes.
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Nancy has been a plant person from an early age. That interest blossomed into a bachelor’s in biology from Elmira College and a master’s degree in horticulture and communications from the University of Kentucky. Nancy worked in plant taxonomy at the University of Florida and the L. H. Bailey Hortorium at Cornell University, and wrote and edited gardening books at Rodale Press in Emmaus, PA. Her interests are plant identification, gardening, hiking, and reading.