Xeriscape Plants

If you're looking for low-maintenance plants that work well in dry conditions, these are great choices. Plants that don't place extra demands on our resources are conservation champions!

Select Plant Type: View All Types Fern Grass, sedge, carex Perennial Rain Garden Plants Shrub Shrub: deciduous Shrub: evergreen Tree Tree: deciduous Tree: evergreen Vine Xeriscape Plants

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Allium cernuum Common Name: Nodding Onion / Nodding Wild Onion Easy to identify by its distinctive, nodding, pastel lilac-pink flowers in late spring, Nodding Onion thrives in challenging sites such as hot sun and gravely soil. It is strikingly beautiful and is well-suited a formal or wild garden, as well as... [ More Info ]

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Aquilegia canadensis Common Name: Wild Columbine / Eastern Red Columbine Wild columbine is easy-to-grow. Deep red and yellow nodding flowers top blue-green foliage for many weeks in spring. This is a good choice for shade gardens, woodland gardens, rock gardens and naturalized areas.... [ More Info ]

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Asclepias tuberosa Common Name: Butterfly Weed Butterfly weed produces many bright orange, flat-topped flower clusters in early June. Flowering goes on for many weeks. Green pods full of seeds with silky white hairs follow the flowers. This is an essential plant if you want to attract a varie... [ More Info ]

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Carex pensylvanica Common Name: Pennsylvania Sedge This sedge forms short clusters and spreads slowly by rhizomes to form a lush carpet. This thick mat of growth provides excellent seasonal cover for foraging small songbirds and the insects and other small animals they love to eat. Reddish-brown, thi... [ More Info ]

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Ceanothus americanus Common Name: New Jersey Tea New Jersey tea is a dense shrub that is ideally suited for the edge of the woods or along the back of a border. It's habit is full and its leaves are bright green throughout the summer. Billowing clusters of tiny, fragrant white flowers appear on lon... [ More Info ]

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Geranium maculatum Common Name: Geranium Bold red-brown foliage keeps its color all season long. Pale pink flowers stand out against the handsome leaves in spring. This is a good ground cover in shaded areas with dry soil. Benefits: Good source of early season nectar for butter... [ More Info ]

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Kalmia latifolia Common Name: Mountain Laurel One of our best loved native shrubs, mountain laurel is a hardy broadleaf evergreen that blooms in late spring. It sets flower buds well, even at a young age. Benefits: Large showy flower clusters Lustrous evergreen foliage ... [ More Info ]

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Panicum virgatum Common Name: Switchgrass A clump-forming grass that grows 4-5' tall with flower heads rising another 1' above the foliage. Flower heads turn beige in fall with the seed plumes persisting well into winter. This bunch grass provides excellent cover and food for ducks, upland g... [ More Info ]

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Penstemon digitalis Common Name: Tall White Beardtongue Beautiful, lettuce-like, leaves give rise to thick spikes of white flowers. Butterflies visit the flowers for nectar and songbirds such as cardinals and goldfinch eat ripe seed from the flower stems in fall and winter. Benefits: Easy-to-gr... [ More Info ]

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Rudbeckia triloba Common Name: Three-lobed Coneflower Hundreds of small deep gold flowers with brown centers bloom for almost three months. This plant is very resistant to drought, heat and pests. Butterflies and other pollinators like the nectar and songbirds eat the seed, which forms as flowers age. ... [ More Info ]

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Schizachyrium scoparium Common Name: Little Bluestem This is an excellent native grass for the garden. It is an upright, clump-forming grass with slender, blue-green leaves. The foliage turns a striking red-orange in the fall, excellent in massed plantings or mixed with other native grasses and wildflo... [ More Info ]

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Sedum ternatum Common Name: Whorled Stonecrop Pure white, starry flowers smother this little sedum for a few weeks every spring. The small fleshy green leaves are arranged in whorls of three around the stem. The foliage is often evergreen. Makes a nice little ground cover at the foot of shrubs o... [ More Info ]

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Symphyotrichum laeve (Aster laevis) Common Name: Smooth Aster Smooth Aster, Symphyotrichum laeve, has cone-shaped clusters of violet-blue flowers with golden yellow centers that appear on the top half of a vase shaped clump. Unlike many other asters, this one has perfectly clean foliage. Tolerates a ... [ More Info ]

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Symphyotrichum novae-angliae (Aster novae-angliae) Common Name: New England Aster New England Aster is a bushy plant with a profusion of dark purple, semi-double flowers which cover the plant entirely from September thru October.... [ More Info ]