Want to add more color to your landscape this season? Start by incorporating one or more of these stunning landscaping plants into your plan.
15 Colorful Plants to Brighten Up Your Landscape
Updated on Jul. 03, 2025
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Sweat Pea
Sweet peas are colorful plants that are fairly easy to grow. As the name suggests, sweet pea is sweetly fragrant when blooming in spring. It’s also quite ornamental, thanks to the brightly hued pastel flowers of pink, purple and white. Give it something to grow on and put it where you can enjoy the scent—by a garden gate or doorway, for instance. Sweet pea (Lathrys odoratus) is an annual vine growing about 3 feet tall.
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Viola
Although usually grown as an annual, violas are frost-tolerant and many overwinter successfully. Their compact size and free-flowering habit are a good fit for container gardening. There are a range of bright, festive colors, including white, lilac, purple, yellow and orange. This mix of lemon and peach colors is called Sunset Boulevard. Violas are available at your favorite local garden retailer.
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Coleus
Coleus (Solenostemon scutellariodes) has almost as many variegation patterns as it does color choices, and there are more named varieties introduced every year. Colors range from hues of green and yellow to red, pink, purple, bronze and orange—some solid, some with beautiful patterns. It typically grow 10 to 15 inches tall and also features summer flowers.
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Strawberry Blonde French Marigold
The strawberry blonde marigold will turn heads all right—just look at all the multicolor blooms on one plant. These colorful plants open deep pink with rustic yellow highlights, then mature to straw yellow. It’s a completely different look, yet the typical marigold qualities (mounded form, heat tolerance) are still readily apparent. Strawberry Blonde grows 8-10 in. tall and 6-8 in. wide, so it’s works well in containers.
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Lavender
Lavender is one of the most colorful—and fragrant—herbs. The flowers dry nicely and are often put in potpourri or bundled in sachets and kept in a sock drawer. Lavender is also good at repelling mosquitos and flies in the garden. Plant somewhere sunny and with well-drained, slightly alkaline soil.
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Sunflower
Some varieties of sunflowers grow to up to 10 ft. tall! Choose one that stays a reasonable height and you’ll enjoy showy flowers and tasty seeds. Sunflowers attract beautiful visitors like hummingbirds, bees and ladybugs. For many, sunflowers are also a symbol of happiness thanks to their bright yellow pedals and sun-like appearance.
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Blackbeard Penstemon
This heat-, humidity- and cold-tolerant perennial is great at attracting hummingbirds. Blackbeard boasts white-accented lilac flowers rising above dark-purple, mounded foliage. It grows 28-34 in. tall and 2 ft. wide and blooms from early to midsummer and are great garden plants and flowers. The colorful plant is hardy in USDA zones 3-8.
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Sedum
If you want some whimsical flower bed plants, look at sedum. The fluffy, bright pink blossoms are a common target for bees looking for a rich source of pollen. Plant seeds well apart and give them space to grow together over time.
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Mint Julep Geranium
Mint Julep could almost make you forget about flowers. Look at the beautiful variegated foliage with broad swatches of white along the borders—that alone is reason enough to grow this geranium. Enjoy the scarlet-red flower clusters throughout the summer. Mint Julep grows 1 ft. tall and wide.
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Bee Balm
As the name implies, bees love the bee balm plant (monarda), and this spiky flower can provide some important exotic flavor to your yard. Unlike many of the garden plants and flowers on our list, the bee balm doesn’t mind wet soil and more marshy ground, making it more flexible when it comes to planting in clay or tougher soils.
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Mock Orange
Mock orange (philadelphus) will captivate you two ways: with its clear-white flowers and yellow centers; and with its sweet perfume, cast in late spring when you’re out and about in the garden and can enjoy it. It’s one of the more striking landscaping bushes when in bloom, and a good background plant of 6-8 feet in height the rest of the season. It’s hardy in Zones 4 to 7.
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Coralbells
Coralbells (Heuchera) are becoming the foliage queens of the shade garden and landscaping bushes, thanks to ever-more-colorful cultivars hitting the market. This mixture of “Berry Smoothie” and “Forever Purple” coralbells makes a dynamic combination in the low-care shade garden. Like other coralbells, they also feature tiny bell-shape blooms in summer. Coralbells are hardy in Zones 4 to 9.
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Gilded Sun Floribunda Rose
Yellow roses tend to bleach out in sunlight, losing their vivid color. Gilded Sun is a variety with non-fading yellow blooms atop large, glossy green leaves. Some older roses have problems with diseases such as black-spot, but Gilded Sun is exceptionally disease resistant.
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Profusion Red Zinnia
Profusion zinnias are beloved for their compact size, disease resistance, and lasting blooms. This newest addition to the series offers the same features but with a true red color that won’t fade in summer sunlight. A 2017 All-America Selections Winner, Profusion Red looks great in borders and in container gardening.
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Honeysuckle
Famed for its scent and orchid-like yellow flowers, honeysuckle is an amazing addition to any garden. They come in bush or climber varieties, which gives you a lot of options for placement (growing them around patios or decks is common for the fragrance). Like lilacs, honeysuckles can grow surprisingly large after a couple of years, so take note of space.
FAQs
What are the best colorful plants that are beginner-friendly?
“For easy, colorful, beginner-friendly flowers Marigolds are a great choice,” says Engel, “They are bright, easy to sow, plus the French Marigold types can help keep some insects away.”
How do I know if the colorful plants I like are invasive?
“For invasive plants, I always recommend checking with the local university extension service or nearby agriculture department. They typically have lists (some can be accessed online) that are specific to the local area and they have the most accurate information impacting their regions,” says Engel.
About the Expert
- Steven Engel is the Regional Account Manager for PanAmerican Seed, an internationally renowned breeder and producer of seed-raised flowers and vegetables. He specializes in the Southwest and Coastal regions of North American, and plants that thrive in dry climates with high sunlight.
