A gardener's guide to plants that can thrive in St. Louis

Local experts share hardy choices for your yard: shrubs, perennials, annuals, trees, and more.

by

Local plant nurseries are busiest during spring, but it’s often not until summer sets in that DIY landscapers can truly take stock of what’s working or not in their own backyards. Whether you’re filling in the gaps or filling in the pages of your gardening journal with plans for next year, you’ll find plenty of ideas, inspiration, and tips from the local plant experts below. Take heed of their suggestions, and watch your garden grow.  

The Experts

SHRUBS  

Hydrangea

“A large flowering shrub choice for our area would be the hydrangea of the paniculata variety,” says Greg Stinson, owner of The Bee Garden Center in St Charles. “They are a woody-stemmed relative of the popular blue and pink blooming soft stem hydrangeas.” Stinson’s top choices include limelight prime or bobo for their long-lasting flowers that thrive in full sun.

Bill Spradley, a certified arborist, plant collector, and owner of Trees, Forests and Landscapes, is also partial to the hydrangea paniculata bobo variety for its sun-tolerant quality. “This low, compact hydrangea is a strong performer,” he says. “It stays in that 3.5 to 4-foot range which makes it low maintenance and easy to care for.”  

Ruby Slipper

Another option in the dwarf hydrangea oakleaf group is the ruby slipper, quercifolia, which gets great fall color. “It starts out white in flower then turns a reddish pink as the late summer goes on,” says Spradley. “It’s also in the 4-foot range so it can be used in shadier foundation beds.”

Likewise, Ann Lapides, owner of Sugar Creek Gardens, is a fan of the ruby slipper, which “bring huge white flowers” in the shape of cones on dwarf shrubs that grow 3.5 feet tall and 4 to 5 feet wide. Lapides describes the rich, velvety flowers as “robust, remaining on the shrubs even in heavy rain, and lasting throughout winter. Its flowers are beautiful in fresh-cut and dried flower arrangements,” she adds. 

Nannyberry Viburnum

Susan Leahy, manager of native plants for Greenscape Gardens, recommends the nannyberry viburnum for homeowners who are looking for a larger, climate-friendly shrub. It blooms with white flowers in the spring and edible blue fruit in the fall. “It’s great for attracting birds and adaptable in terms of soil and shade,” says Leahy.  

PERENNIALS

Whether she’s recommending trees, shrubs, or perennials, Leahy gravitates toward native varieties for practical and environmental reasons. “I advocate for natives because they’re adapted to our soil and our climate and because of that they require very little care,” she says. In addition, native plants have a relationship with native birds, butterflies, and bees, making them important to the ecosystem.

Leahy’s favorite perennials include slender mountain mint, pycnanthemum tenuifolium, a sun-loving plant with white flowers that last a good portion of the summer and that will attract pollinators. The plant forms a bush mound of approximately 2 to 3 feet high and wide, respectively.

In shady areas, Leahy is partial to planting the dwarf spiderwort, tradescantia tharpii, a small plant that grows up to 6 inches tall in the spring and yields blue, pink, or purple flowers. Like other spiderworts, it doesn’t go dormant and may bloom again in the summer.

“A smaller perennial plant option that I think does great here and is very showy is the black eyed Susan, rudbeckia,” says Stinson. “The goldsturm variety offers a showy golden display in areas of full sun, and native gardeners can also source nativars of this plant family. "

A great perennial shade option—aside from hostas—are coral bells, heuchera. “They come in many foliage colors and provide reliability and color contrast,” says Stinson.

Helleborus or lenten rose is one of the toughest shade perennials, with evergreen foliage that deer won’t touch, says Spradley. “There are many new cultivars with multiple colors to choose from that display their flowers above the broad thick foliage.”

In addition, Spradley counts on pulmonaria shrimps on the barbie for its outstanding variegated foliage that thrives in dense shade and is also deer resistant. “The more pink-than-blue colored flowers makes this a beautiful understory pulmonaria,” he says.

Indian pink spigelia is a superior Missouri native perennial that puts on a vibrant show of crimson trumpets with brilliant yellow centers. It's one of the most popular Missouri native perennials for humans and critters alike, and hummingbirds can’t resist its sweet nectar, says Lapides. “Indian pink naturally grows under trees and looks lovely in shady woodland gardens. It’s fantastic in formal beds and cottage gardens.” Indian Pink also works well in part sun or shady perennial borders, as an easy-care ground cover under trees, as a pollinator in native gardens. “The list goes on and on,” says Lapides.

ANNUALS  

In more than 40 years of planting trees and other plants in St. Louis, David Sherwood, owner of Sherwood’s Forest Nursery, has learned a lot about the area’s finicky climate and tricky topsoil. “Soils east of 270 tend to be nice loamy topsoil; west of 270, it’s rocky clay,” he says. “For this reason, some plants, like dogwoods and azaleas, grow better east of 270.”

Sherwood favors resilient varieties that can stand up to St. Louis summers. “The hardiest annual for full sun is lantana, which will attract butterflies and bloom all summer. [It also] survives dry soil,” says Sherwood. Another great annual are sunpatiens, which will take full sun or partial shade and is available in a variety of colors.

Stinson likes planting beds of colorful zinnias. “The Cut & Come Again Mix & State Fair Mix are tall annuals with long-lasting blooms that lend themselves to cuttings when guests come over,” he says. “They root quickly and hold up great in the heat and during low-moisture months.”

Bowood Farms’ Kathie Hoyer likes blue improved summer snapdragon, Angelonia, for sunny spots—and favors illumination bush violet, Browallia, for its annual color in shadier areas of the garden. 

FLOWERING TREES

“St. Louis has such wildly fluctuating temperature extremes—sometimes from one day to the next—that plants need to be quite tough to thrive as well as to survive,” says Hoyer, who likes the sweet bay magnolia, magnolia virginiana, for its creamy white, lemon-scented flowers, which begin to bloom in late spring.  

Spradley recommends the red flowering buckeye, Aesculus pavia, a native understory (shade loving) flowering tree that blooms in May. “It has a nice loose form with a unique palmate pattern of leaves. The red, bottle brush-like flower interests all who see it,” he says. 

The Missouri-native pawpaw, Asimina triloba, is beautiful and functions as a source of food in the garden. In the springtime, its showy burgundy flowers appear at the same time that the leaves begin to emerge. Come fall, flowers give way to fruit, which has a flavor reminiscent of bananas. (Pawpaws are sometimes referred to as the Missouri Banana Tree.) According to Lapides, its large oval leaves turn bright yellow in the fall, adding soft golden color to the landscape. Pawpaws are also the host plant of the Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly, she says. “Their caterpillars exclusively eat Pawpaw leaves.” 

SHADE TREES

Blackgum wildfire, Nyssa sylvatica, features a unique reddish tint when its leaves emerge in spring. It then turns to all green foliage in July and completes its colorful cycle with fantastic fall color, says Spradley. It's a “vigorous growing shade tree, with low maintenance for sunny areas. Excellent shape and form, it is a Nativar!” he exclaims.

Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum, is a relatively fast-growing shade tree with beautiful fall color, says Leahy.

Finally, the October glory maple, Acer Rubrum, is Sherwood's favorite large growing shade tree. It starts out green and turns dark red into late October, when other maples are bare. 

Sign up for the Design newsletter to receive the best home, design, and style content in your inbox every Wednesday.
Or, check out all of our newsletters.