10 Bulletproof Plants

Buddleias are easy-care plants, but they’re invasive in some areas. Look for sterile cultivars ‘Blue Chip’ (shown) and ‘Purple Haze,’ which don’t set seed and therefore don’t run wild. “They’re shorter and more compact, and because they’re sterile they have a much longer flowering season,” Staddon says. “Get them going in the garden and they’ll quietly take care of themselves.”

If you’ve skipped growing roses because the very thought of pruning and fighting leaf spot makes you too tired to go outside, your dreams have come true. Flower Carpet® roses are a groundcover alternative to fussier rose varieties — disease-resistant, drought-tolerant and unintimidating, they’re guaranteed to come in a color you love. “There’s no special way to prune them,” Staddon says. “Even if you take a pair of shears to them in the middle of the growing season, you’ll have new buds in 20 to 25 days.”

African iris is a true beauty — but one that gives gardeners fits because it tends to succumb to crown rot in areas with high humidity and heavy soils. Until there was Katrina®, that is, an exotic-looking variety that tolerates these problems gracefully and flowers over a very long season. The clean bloom outlines and strappy foliage fit well in both traditional and contemporary garden schemes.

Itoh peonies, which are crosses between herbaceous peonies and tree peonies, grow well over a wide range of climates and feature stunning foliage, giant blooms and a bounty of available colors. “I have come to be an enormous fan of them,” says Nicholas Staddon, the director of new plants for plant breeder Monrovia. “The flowers are to die for. People think they’re hard to grow, but it’s absolutely not the case — peonies outlive most of us. When you’re pushing up daisies, your peonies will still be pushing up blooms.” All they need is a good organic mulch and you’re off to the races.