Sep 2010 If you are looking for advice on sunny plants in other words plants that grow well in sunny garden conditions,  take a look at some of our recommendations.

It’s not just cacti that thrive in sunlight – you’ll find a lot of the plants that have a reputation for being half- hardy, actually have this label because they really only work well as sunny plants.  Often you will find plants that thrive in sunny conditions will have a certain amount of drought tolerance. Obviously some plants of the tropical variety require a lot of watering but most sun loving plants are well adapted to dry conditions. If you have a sunny garden, a lot of plants that you might think of as being fragile come into their own.  Roses, for example, are outstanding sunny plants:  their reputation as a flower hard to grow comes more from the fact that a lot of people have rose plants in areas that aren’t sunny enough.  In the UK where sometimes we have very wet dull summers, roses will develop mildew and the flowers fail to open rotting as full buds on the stem. As sunny plants, roses require a minimum of six hours’ sunlight per day – which is why any nice shaded rose garden doesn’t growing so well.

Your selection of sunny plants can pretty much depend on what you want from your garden and the type of soil you have.  If you’re looking to make green fingers greener, you can choose sunny plants that thrive in drought conditions – desert-type plants, whose naturally sunny environment make them perfect for the environmentally-conscious gardener. Sunny plants that normally live in drought conditions need very little water, so you can plant with confidence even when your neighbour has to sneak out at night so no-one can see him infringing the hosepipe ban!  Drought-friendly sunny plants include cacti, aloe vera, sedum, alyssum, petunia, Mesembryanthemum, Pelargonium, Daylily, tobacco plant and snow-in-summer plus many more – all of which are plants that will thrive in sunny areas without the need for much watering.  

Sunny plants don’t have to be so tough:  tropical foliage (if you’re prepared to abide by the intermittently intense watering schedule it requires – think reproducing the rainy season) can add splashes of extraordinary colour to sunny areas.  Plants from tropical regions such as Bird of Paradise, need particular care, though:  if you’re looking for easy sunny plants, they aren’t for you.  We would advise only choosing tropicals as your sunny plants if you have a good rich loam and the time and resources to tend your garden on a full-time basis.

If you want sunny plants that look a bit more normal (i.e. less like a desert or a jungle):  you can find sunny plants of all types – herbs, shrubs, trees and flowers – that are already indigenous to the less extreme climates of Europe or North America.  These are the sunny plants you remember from the summer gardens of your youth – the glorious buddleia, its clumps of purple flowers studded with butterflies; or the magnificent magnolia, a sunny plant adaptable to pretty much any temperate climate, whose fleshy bells fill the evening air with scent. 

Desert or jungle, riot of flowers or carpet of cacti:  there are sunny plants for every taste, sunny plants to fill every location.  It doesn’t matter if you are adding to an existing garden or theming one from scratch.  You willl find sunny plants here to suit your needs.