Sandy soil is known to drain quickly, making it quite challenging for some plants to thrive. However, it’s an ideal growing environment for flowers that like sandy soil. These plants can adapt to the dry and porous nature of sandy soil. Whether you are planning to grow some perennials, annuals, or shrubs, adding ground covers for your butterfly-themed garden, or just want to add some colors, these sandy soil-friendly flowering plants could be a great option!
Expert Gardener Tip for Plants That Love Sandy Soil: To make sandy soil hold more water, add some water-absorbing materials such as coco coir, peat moss, perlite, wood chips, manure, or any other organic materials to the soil.
Perennial Plants For Sandy Soil
Giant Hyssop (Agastache)
Growing Zones: 5 to 10
Light: Full sun
Watering: Regular watering, about once a week
Plus Value for Gardeners: Fragrant and showy blooms, attract pollinators
Giant hyssops are flowers that like sandy soil and love moisture from the Lamiaceae Family. They’re easy to grow but don’t do well as companion plants as they will fight with other plants for food.
Blue-eyed African Daisy (Arctotis stoechadifolia)
Growing Zones: 8 to 11
Light: Full sun
Watering: Regular watering, about once a week
Plus Value for Gardeners: Showy blooms, attract butterflies and pollinators
If you’re looking for tropical flowers like sandy soil that creates good-cut flowers, see no other than the blue-eyed African daisies. They are very low maintenance and also resistant to challenges such as drought and heat.
Anemone Clematis (Clematis montana)
Growing Zones: 6 to 9
Light: Full sun, partial shade
Watering: Regular watering, about once a week
Plus Value for Gardeners: Showy blooms, attract hummingbirds and bees
These native to the Himalayas, China, and Taiwan are the next flowering plants that like sandy soil and sun, although they do well too under partial shade. Like their clematis cousins, the delicate anemone clematis is poisonous to humans and pets. They contain a chemical called protoanemonin and can be fatal if eaten in large quantities.
Annual Plants That Love Sandy Soil
Basket of Gold (Aurinia saxatilis)
Growing Zones: 3 to 7
Light: Full sun
Watering: Regular watering, about once a week. Decrease the water intake in the rainy season
Plus Value for Gardeners: Showy blooms, dry soil tolerant
Basket of golds are attractive flowers that like sandy soil with clusters of tiny yellowish golden blooms. In their natural habitat, these spring bloomers thrive in sandy and rocky areas and somewhat have a long blooming season.
Garden Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus)
Growing Zones: 2 to 11
Light: Full sun, partial shade
Watering: Regular watering, about once a week
Plus Value for Gardeners: Showy blooms, attract pollinators and butterflies, good cut
When it comes to maintenance, the colorful garden cosmos don’t need complex treatment. In addition to growing in sandy soil, these annual beauties also tolerate heat and drought, even in the hottest gardening areas!
West Indian Lantana (Lantana camara)
Growing Zones: 7 to 11
Light: Full sun
Watering: Regular watering, about once a week
It’s difficult not to fall in love with the West Indian Lantana just by seeing them for the first time. Having long been favored for its showy, bright-colored, and star-shaped blossoms, the West Indian Lantana also makes a great addition to hanging baskets, containers, and any other small gardening spaces–as well as house plants.
Shrubs For Sandy Soil
Bog-rosemary (Andromeda polifolia)
Growing Zones: 2 to 6
Light: Full shade, partial shade, full sun
Watering: Regular watering, about once to twice a week
Plus Value for Gardeners: Showy blooms, insect pests resistant, wet soil resistant
If you’re looking for evergreen shrubs that most gardeners hardly know, give it a try to the attractive pink and white tiny blossoms of bog-rosemary. However, to grow these flowers that like sandy soil, they require a colder area. Although bog-rosemary is named ‘rosemary’, this plant is not edible at all.
Deutzia (Deutzia)
Growing Zones: 5 to 8
Light: Full sun, partial shade
Watering: Regular watering, about once a week. Decrease the amount of watering during the growing season and rainy season
Plus Value for Gardeners: Showy and fragrant blooms, attract pollinators and butterflies
Deutzias are flowering plants from the same family as hydrangeas. The plants that love sandy soil thrive well in both full sun and partial shade areas, but for a maximum blooming period, it’s best to grow them under the full sun as they love to sunbathe.
French Hydrangea (Hydrangea)
Growing Zones: 3 to 9
Light: Full sun, partial shade
Watering: Regular watering, about one to three times a week
Plus Value for Gardeners: Showy blooms, attractive color-changing blooms based on pH level, attract pollinators
Widely known as the ‘chameleon’ in the world of plants, as their ability to change color, the classic French hydrangeas are also tough flowering plants! As these flowers like sandy soil can thrive in most hardiness zones, they are also deer resistant.
Ground Cover Plants For Sandy Soil
Snow-in-summer (Cerastium tomentosum)
Growing Zones: 3 to 7
Light: Full sun, partial shade
Watering: Regular watering, about once a week
Plus Value for Gardeners: Showy white blooms, attract bees
Snow-in-summers are kind of underrated ground cover flowers that like sandy soil. Originating from the southern part of Italy and Corsica Island, these perennial charms are not a fan of excessive heat.
Pinkladies (Oenothera speciosa)
Growing Zones: 5 to 8
Light: Full sun, partial shade
Watering: Regular watering, about once or twice a week
Plus Value for Gardeners: Showy blooms, attract butterflies and pollinators, resistant to poor soil
Also known as the Mexican evening primrose, the dainty Pinkladies is best not only for ground covers but also for rocky areas. The pink and white flowers that like sandy soil blooms in fall and summer, and they don’t need much to maintain.
Creeping Phlox (Phlox subulata)
Growing Zones: 3 to 9
Light: Full shade, full sun
Watering: Regular watering, about once a week
Plus Value for Gardeners: Showy blooms, attract pollinators, good to prevent erosion, deer and dry soil resistance
These perennial ground cover flowers that like sandy soil are like ‘magic’, as they resist many challenges, including fires, poor soil, and salt. A pruning session is needed to keep these colorful flowering plants in shape. Nonetheless, if you’d like to let the beautiful creeping phlox cover a larger area of your garden, pruning is not mandatory.
Create A Magnificent Landscape With Flowers That Like Sandy Soil
To conclude, whether it’s shrubs, annuals, perennials, or ground covers, flowers that like sandy soil have adapted well to survive in conditions where generally, minimal maintenance is required. With proper care and adding some amendments to improve the sandy soil’s ability to restrain more water, you can enjoy the lush and vibrant colors in your landscape.
New author in the hood. Loves gardening and flowers are my spirit animals (yes I know they are not animals but I insist). I will be covering most of the flowers’ topics here and occasionally random though as well.
