Easy Growing Summertime Flowers for Your SoCal Garden, Balcony, and Porch  

Written by Kelsey W.

The summer is the perfect time to put beautiful flowering plants in your garden, but some plants are easier to grow than others.

If you’re looking for easy breezy plants that require nothing more complicated than a pot and some water or a flower bed and some liquid plant food, you’re in luck. Many flowers grow easily and with almost no effort as long as you give them an occasional drink.

For many of these plants, you don’t even really need to fertilize them unless you’re trying to get as many blooms as possible from your plants. Realistically, these plants just need some healthy soil at the outset and regular visits with your watering can.

Let’s discover some of the easiest and prettiest plants you can put in your Southern California garden, yard, or patio this summer.

Marigolds & Petunias Rule Summer Flower Gardens

Two of the most sun-loving plants you’ll find at your local Southern California garden centers are marigolds and petunias. These plants start appearing in the late spring and early summer when temperatures start rising and the sunshine starts increasing.

One of the best parts about putting marigolds and petunias in your garden is that they adore the summer weather, which means they offer the ideal balance between easy-to-grow blooms that can also fare well during hot spells.

You can give your marigolds and petunias a great start in life by using high-quality soil when you plant them, but you don’t absolutely need to fertilize them, especially if you’re just planning on having them around for the summer.

However, fertilizing them isn’t difficult, and you can accomplish it with any concentrated liquid fertilizer that you can add to the watering can you use to water the plants. Adding liquid fertilizer weekly or every two weeks is sufficient.

Zinnias are a Set-It-and-Forget-It Flower

Brightly colored zinnias are a perfect addition to any Southern California home, whether you’re decorating a balcony on a seventh-story apartment building or you’re adding some flower beds in front of your home. The coolest feature about zinnias is that they’ll grow virtually anywhere.

While yes, you can certainly purchase the finest soil and add compost and nutrients and fertilizer to your zinnias, they’ll actually fare just fine in just about any dirt, as long as it drains well. Zinnias are an excellent plant for anyone who might not have time to spend their afternoons gardening.

If you have a few moments, taking the dead blooms off your zinnias can help you greatly increase the number of new blooms that come around during the season. Planting your zinnias in fresh, healthy soil is also a great way to ensure they keep blooming all summer long.

However, they’re a truly easy plant to grow that won’t make you at all nervous about their survival, even if you completely forget about them for a week. As long as you keep up with the watering schedule when the plants are young, they’ll get nicely established and become quite resilient as they age. Even though zinnias are annuals, there’s a good chance they may last through the year if you care for them well.

Pot Marigolds are Great for Coastal Homes

If you live in zones 9 or 10 in Southern California, you may want to explore bringing a pot marigold or Calendula plant home to grow in your yard. Not only are these plants prolific bloomers in the summer, but they’re also quite tolerant of beginner gardeners.

Calendula plants can grow in almost any quality of soil, and they’ll bloom all summer long with minimal attention. Not only are calendula plants a cheerful and summery shade of yellow, but they’re also enthusiastic enough to bloom all the way into the fall.

The only caveat with calendula flowers is that they don’t like the extreme heat, so they’re most comfortable in coastal areas in Southern California or in places where they won’t experience severe heat. You can always plant them in pots and bring them inside to a sunny window if you want to enjoy the flowers, but live in an area of SoCal with hotter temperatures.

One neat feature of the plant is that it’s actually edible, with the petals and leaves occasionally appearing in salads. The leaves even have some medicinal use as a topical medicine for skin irritations like burns and insect bites. If you’ve ever thought about growing plants in your garden that can double as medicinal aids, the calendula is one of the easiest flowers with which to start.

Perennials are Great, Easy Flowers for the Summer, Too

Marigolds, petunias, zinnias, and calendulas are all considered annuals even though they often last for a few years in the temperate conditions of Southern California. If you’re willing to make things a little more permanent, you can also consider perennials for your summertime blooms.

A few plants that will offer you joyful flowers all summer long include coneflowers, daylilies, and black-eyed Susans. Each of these plants is easy to grow and reliably produces blooms every summer for months on end.

Coneflowers will usually bloom from the middle of summer and into the fall. Daylilies will normally bloom in June and July, but may bloom longer and earlier in Southern California. Black-eyed Susan flowers appear for an even longer stretch, blooming from early summer and well into the fall.

What makes each of these flowers even better is that they’re easy to grow. Not only are they profuse bloomers all summer long, but they’re also fairly hardy when they become established in your yard. As always, giving these plants a strong start with good soil and regular water means not having to do a lot to them later and throughout the summer season.

A Few Things All Easy-Growing Plants Have in Common

One of the most important things you can do for your easy-to-grow plants is make sure their soil drains easily. Virtually all of the plants that you can grow easily in the summer and that will give you lots of blooms will only do so if their soil doesn’t remain soggy for long periods of time.

Although these plants might need some extra attention when you first bring them home, they’re more easily able to withstand a lack of water than they are several days sitting in a pool of water. Having success with your summer blooms means setting them up for success at the very start with well-draining soil.

If you’re not quite sure whether the soil in your yard will drain well, you can always start with containers and see how the plants fare for the summer. A row of containers in front of your home or along your balcony will look beautiful, especially when you get to enjoy flowers for the entire summer and into the fall.

Many of these easy flowers produce beautiful blooms well into the fall because of the way the seasons tend to occur in Southern California. We often have the “June gloom” and moderate temperatures that give way to hotter temperatures that last well into September and even October, and encourage flowering for many months.

Try These Plants in Hanging Baskets

Don’t forget to look up when it comes to filling your yard, patio, or balcony with blooms. Flowers like petunias and the other annuals do particularly well in baskets, and there’s nothing quite like growing plants in the air with their lovely blooms hanging down from the ceiling of your porch or balcony.

Petunias actually have a habit of creating a mild vining effect, so they drop off the side of a hanging basket beautifully once they’re established. Just remember to make sure your hanging baskets have well-draining soil, which might necessitate having a basket with an internal water reservoir or drainage system.

Bring Summer Flowers Home from Green Thumb Nursery

Visit Green Thumb Nursery for advice on your summer garden, whether you’re a veteran gardener or completely new to growing summer plants. Summer is a beautiful time to add flowers, plants, and beauty to your home. We have the knowledge and materials you need to create a beautiful garden that will give you joy all summer long.

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