Water-Wise Plants That Go Way Beyond Succulents

Blanket flower (Gaillardia) features gorgeous golden tips and requires moderate water.

Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas) has deep purple “rabbit ears” that stand out in garden beds. The plant thrives with only moderate water.

This water-wise plant looks like it came from the ocean. Sea holly (Eryngium amethystinum), whose silvery blue stems are topped with amethyst-blue flower heads, attracts butterflies bees and needs only moderate water.

In this Napa Valley garden designed by Ron Lutsko (lutskoassociates.com), clusters of chartreuse Euphorbia rigida add a spritz of lime. The plant thrives with only moderate water.

Looking like it came straight from an English country garden, hummingbird favorite Salvia ‘Amistad’ grows fast to 4 feet tall, all while being an effortlessly gorgeous water-wise plant.

Velvety kangaroo paws (Anigozanthos ‘Orange Cross’ and Bush Gems series) add spicy color against golden grasses in a garden in Tiburon, California, designed by Arterra Landscape Architects (arterrallp.com). The plants tolerate drought but flower best with some water in summer and excellent drainage in light sandy soil.

African daisy (Arctotis spp.), with blooms that can range from brilliant orange to cool purply-white, needs moderate water.

California lilac is one of the prettiest water-wise plants we grow. Its purple buds open to intense blue flowers that attract bees. The leaves are dark green, small, and quilted, and the plant needs no summer water.

Yes, we do include succulents in our list of water-wise plants! (Can’t help it—they’re just so gorgeous!) Dramatic leaves and striking blooms of yellow, red, or orange makes a wide varieties of aloes all-around perfect.

We love a good madrone, and strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) is definitely no exception.  Puffy (and edible!)fruits the size of olives turn from yellow when young to red when mature. The fruits are borne at the same time as urn-shaped flowers among dark evergreen leaves. It requires moderate to minimal water.

Fairy duster (Calliandra eriophylla) may be a water-wise plant, but it looks straight from the tropics. The shrub attracts hummingbirds with its brilliant red stamens that resemble powder puffs. Use it as an accent in front of a living ocotillo fence or as a backdrop for small blue agaves. Needs minimal water.

This deciduous shrub with purple foliage turns more burnished in fall; flowers resemble puffs of smoke. Requires minimal water.

Actually from Madeira, this plant produces wonderful spikes of blue-purple flowers along the coast in poor soil and with practically no extra water. Bees love it.

Hummingbirds love bottlebrush, a shrub with colorful flowers carried in dense, bristle-like spikes. Needs moderate water.

Rockrose adds resinous perfume to the garden as well as showy, papery flowers. Sun loving and fast growing, the flower is tolerant of aridity.

Sturdy as heck and drought-tolerant to boot, cotonoeaster (Cotoneaster spp.) is a garden staple. Clusters of red fruits last a long time among the dark green leaves of this evergreen shrub. Thrives in full sun, with minimal to moderate water.

Clusters of rose-purple flowers cover this shrub in fall. Needs minimal to moderate watering.

This evergreen shrub, with fine, bronze foliage, can be trained into a tree. Needs minimal to moderate water.

This shrub bears a profusion of bright yellow daisies. Needs minimal watering.

Another water-wise plant that looks straight out of the rainforest, spider flowers (Grevillea spp.) hail from a range of climates, including temperate regions of Australia. Large, colorful flowers fleck this unthirsty shrub all summer long.

Ranging from low ground covers to large trees, these widely grown plants are conifers, though they produce fleshy, berrylike fruits instead of woody cones–and need very little water.

This is the signature tree for many hot-summer regions, and for good reason: this water-wise plant really delivers on blooms. It’s hard to beat the showy summer flowers, beautiful bark, and brilliant fall color.

Tiny flowers in vibrant hues bloom all year in mild climates.

Leaves emerge pinkish and bronzy red, then turns to soft light green; they take on purple and bronze tints in fall and often turn fiery crimson in winter, especially in a sunny location and with some frost.

These pretty blooms come in colors ranging from white to shades of yellow, pink, salmon, and red. Oleanders need little water once established, but these water-wise plants look like they should be growing in the tropics of Hawaii.

Its sculptural foliage makes this a great plant for a screen or windbreak, but it works wonderfully as groundcover or a container planting, too.

Pink-hued blooms give way to fruit: currants or gooseberries, depending on the variety.

The fun every-which-way foliage sprouts yellow button-head flowers.

This heat-tolerant shrub sports trumpet-shaped flowers in a variety of orange-yellow-red hues and leaves that divide featherwise into many leaflets.

This grass sprouts dense clusters of bright green leaves and yellow or purplish flower spikes in autumn.

Yarrow is a wonderful water-wise plant for meadow gardens. Long-lasting beauties deliver blooms late in the season, when gardens need them most. It makes for a good edging and a neat groundcover for small areas; useful in rock gardens.

Fluffy blooms in a wide variety of brilliant colors atop tall stems are the signature of this easy-to-grow flower.

Desert honeysuckle brings all the birds to the yard! Blossoms of all species attract hummingbirds, but we especially love this water-wise plant for low-water gardens.

Flowering stems resemble glowing torches—or pokers (hence the name). These are a wonderfully drought-tolerant plant that provide tons of hot color.

This bushy plant is fairly short lived, but to make up for it, it produces lots of trumpet-shaped blooms over a long period.

Downy stems bear flowers in summer.

A tall, lanky deciduous shrub, it has aromatic leaves and lilac or white flowers.

Fuchsia is a staple hanging plant, perfect for containers on shady porches. Hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies can’t resist the flowers, and the plant generously produces spectacular blooms for months. They’re an ideal choice if you find strong fragrances off-putting, as they’re practically odorless. Hardy fuchsias come in a range of colors (we’re partial to the blaze orange of F.magellanica ‘Aurea’ (delicious against the lime green foliage of Japanese forest grass) and the babysoft pink flowers and variegated foliage of F. magellanica var. molinae ‘Sharpitor Aurea.’

Care: Water regularly for the first few years, but then some varieties become water-wise. Keep shoots pinched if you like a bushier plant, and prune back in the spring to control the shape. F. magellanica varieties are the most cold-hardy. They like an organic soil, and mulching will help protect plants in the winter.

This low-growing plant with white blooms in summer makes for excellent groundcover and performs equally well in mild and cold climates, coastal and desert areas.

Agave plants‘ sculptural shapes make these succulents perfect candidates for bold, contemporary gardens.

This cactus, the ultimate water-wise plant, thrives in full sun and heat with very little water. It comes in many varieties; pictured here is golden barrel cactus, with golden spines that eventually yield small yellow flowers in summer.

The desert native with grooved, spiny branches can survive on rainfall but grows and blooms best if soaked deeply once a month.

Prickly pear (Opuntia spp.) are practically the poster child of water-wise plants. Large and showy flowers bedeck this plant native to the Southwest and northern Mexico. It grows best in mild, dry climates. We also love the unexpected purple paddles of Opuntia macrocentra.

Stunning and vibrant bougainvillea is one of the easiest way to provide instant tropicalia vibes in a water-wise plant. The vibrant, often vining bloom reaches its peak in summer, but in mildest-winter regions flowers may appear from spring through fall, and even into winter.

The flower’s searing color and strong aromatic scent make is especially exotic. We don’t often think of marigold as a particularly water-wise plant, but sometimes they surprise us!

The papery blooms of statice (Limonium) retain their color when dried. It requires moderate water.

Related to strawberry tree (they’re embers of the same genus), this shrub is one of the most goregous water-wise plants we know. It can vary from creeping groundcover to a treelike shrub, but all types have small white or pink flowers, usually in late winter to early spring, followed by berrylike red or brown fruits that attract birds. Native species exist all over the West.