Heat-Tolerant Plants

Choose from these top heat-tolerant plants for your summer flower garden.

Blanket Flower: The brilliant hues of the native North American blanket flower have a place in any garden. Blanket flower thrives in full sun and well-drained soil.

Celosia: These fiery, heat-tolerant plants thrive in scorching summer weather. It will grow well in a wide range of soils, including heavy clay.

Coreopsis: The plants range from 8 to 48 inches in height. Keep soil moist around newly planted coreopsis, but resist the urge to overwater.

Cosmos: Suited for full sun to light shade, cosmos comes in a broad spectrum of warm and cool tones and makes a good choice for just about any location.

Fan Flower: These durable heat-tolerant plants have dense foliage and loads of small, fan-shaped flowers in purpole, blue or white. Plant in well-drained soil. Can sprawl out to roughly 3 feet,

Mexican Sunflower: This fast-growing annual, which blooms in late summer and autumn, reaches 6 feet in height and grows best in full sun.

Pine-Leaf Penstemon: This plant has narrow, tubular flowers in shades of red, yellow or magenta and entices bees and butterflies. Pine-leaf penstemon is drought-tolerant.

Portulaca: Hot, sunny, dry conditions suit this bright bloomer. Show it off in containers, rock gardens or mixed plantings.

Snow-in-Summer: This reliable, maintenance-free ground cover thrives in poor soil and sunny locations. White blooms appear on 2 to 3 inch tall plants in late spring and summer.

Yucca: Few plants are as heat-tolerant as yucca. Both flowers and foliage come with this Southwestern favorite. Look for the variegata cultivar for its white-edged, blue-green leaves.