The very hot weather we’ve been having recently, prompts me to think about plants that are well suited to hot, sunny spots in our gardens. Flowering perennial plants that can handle hot, sunny spots include salvias, lavender, gazania, Jerusalem sage (Phlomis), catmint (Nepeta), seaside daisy (Erigeron),
cotton lavender (Santolina), rosemary and geraniums.
To provide colour and structural contrast to these flowering plants in your garden hot spots, think about strappy plants such as Lomandra (many cultivars with green to blueish coloured grass-like foliage), red hot pokers (Kniphofia and Cordylines (purple and pink leaf cultivars).
Succulents also come to mind when we are thinking about feature plants in hot, sunny garden beds. Agave is one of the big, spikey succulents if you have the space. Sedum is a smaller growing succulent family and Sedum autumn joy is a favourite in my garden-budded up now for masses of dark pink/red flowers in autumn.
If you are wanting to define the edges of sunny garden beds with semi-formal hedging plants, my suggestions would include Teucrium or Westringia. There have been some new cultivars of the Australian native Westringia released in recent years (including Grey Box and Aussie Box) and I have seen some very tidy hedges with these plants in sunny gardens around the region.
Teucrium is well known as a hardy, fast growing shrub that can be hedged at up to one meter or kept as attractive, silvery ball shaped specimen shrubs. Small specimen trees for hot, sunny spots in the garden? Hard to go past our Australian native Callistemons, Acacias, Grevillias and compact flowering Eucalypts such as the Euky dwarf, but of course there are small to medium sized conifers such as Juniper spartan that are also suited to these growing conditions.
Ian Rogan
Millthorpe Garden Nursery