Sun Lovers
734 plants in this collection
Filter and sort 734 products
![Abutilon pictum (Flowering Maple), tropical shrub with orange lantern flowers and maple-like lobed leaves]()
![Abutilon pictum 'Souvenir de Bonn' cream-variegated leaves with dangling apricot lantern flowers]()
![Amorpha fruticosa, false indigo bush, a native shrub offered by Woodlanders.]()
![Anredera cordifolia, Madeira vine, sprays of tiny fragrant cream-white flowers]()
![Asimina triloba (pawpaw), a native tree offered by Woodlanders, photographed at OSU.]()
![Baccharis dioica, broombush falsewillow, rare salt-tolerant shrub behind coastal dunes]()
![Buddleia davidii 'Attraction', butterfly bush, deep red blooms on a compact rounded shrub]()
![Buddleia 'Lochinch', butterfly bush, lavender-blue blooms over silvery foliage]()
![Buddleia 'Miss Ruby', butterfly bush, magenta blooms with a butterfly]()
Buddleia davidii x globosa "Miss Ruby" PP 19,950 $26.00 /Butterfly Bush 'Miss Ruby'
- Zones 6–9
- 4–6 ft
![Callicarpa dichotoma 'Albifructus', white beautyberry, white fruit ringing the stems in fall]()
![Callistemon 'Woodlander's Hardy', hardy red bottlebrush, red stamen-brushes on arching evergreen branches]()
![Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Filicoides', fernspray hinoki cypress, layered pendulous green foliage fans.]()
![Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Shiva', sawara cypress, billowing silver-blue dwarf conifer.]()
![Chasmanthium latifolium, river oats, drooping green spikelets on thread-fine stems.]()
![Chelone lyonii 'Hot Lips', pink turtlehead, rose-pink flower spikes over dark green foliage.]()
![Citrumelo 'Dallas', cold-hardy citrus hybrid, ripe fruit among leathery green leaves.]()
![Citrumelo 'Dunstan', cold-hardy citrus, ripe yellow globes among green leaves.]()
![Citrus reticulata 'Changsha', hardy mandarin, ripe orange fruit among willow-like leaves.]()
![Citrus reticulata 'Keraji', hardy mandarin, ripe flattened tangerines among green leaves.]()
![Citrus taiwanica, Taiwan orange, sour fruit among winged green leaves.]()
About the Sun Lovers Collection
Sun lovers are the plants built for full exposure, the ones that flower hardest and stand strongest where the light is unbroken and the heat is real. Give them six hours of sun or more and they repay it with bloom, color, and vigor that shade-grown plants cannot match. This is the largest and most varied group we grow, spanning perennials, shrubs, and small trees united by a single appetite for light.
In the landscape these are the plants that carry the big, sunny gestures: the long flowering borders, the pollinator plantings humming from spring to frost, the hot banks and hell strips where little else will grow. Because the group is so broad, sun is only the starting point; pair for height, bloom time, and texture and a full-sun bed can change week to week across the whole season.
We lean heavily into sun-loving plants because they do the most ecological work for the least fuss. Open, sunny plantings feed the widest range of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, and many sun lovers are also drought-tolerant natives that thrive on heat and neglect once established. A well-planned sun garden is generous to wildlife and easy on water and time alike.
Give them full sun and good drainage, resist the urge to overwater once they are settled, and let the group's diversity work for you. For the driest, hottest sites reach into our Drought-Tolerant Plants; for the shadier edges of the same garden, our Shade Lovers collection picks up where the light gives out; and our Southeastern Natives offer sun-loving plants matched to local conditions.
