Heighten your garden designs by edging planting beds and pathways with flowering annuals and perennials.
Getty Images
Border plants play an essential role in unifying gardens.
Your garden aesthetic will guide you in selecting border flowers that emphasize the existing style and structure of yourgarden.
Credit:Getty Images
Along walkways, flowering plants heighten the experience of moving through the landscape.
Coconut Surprise Dianthus
Southern Living Plant Collection
Sturdy evergreen foliage makes dianthus an ideal edging plant.
Clove-scented blossoms withfrilly white petalsand a dark red eye attract butterflies to the garden.
Credit:Southern Living Plant Collection
Plants begin blooming in late spring and flower through summer with regular deadheading.
Even plants that are not deadheaded will put on a repeat performance in autumn.
The flowers attract a diversity of pollinators and are resistant to deer and rabbit browsing.
Credit:Getty Images
Provide ample moisture and sharp drainage for this plant.
Catmint
With soft gray-green foliage and an abundance of blooms,catmintmakes a striking border planting.
Lower-growing varieties measure 12 to 18 inches tall but spread considerably wider to form a compact mound.
Credit:Getty Images
Use them for lining sidewalks and driveways, or to add structure in more formal designs.
Bees and butterflies cannot resist the purple blooms that cover plants from early summer through fall.
Moss Phlox
This ground-huggingperennialheralds the arrival of spring with a regal display of fragrant blooms.
Credit:Getty Images
Flowers completely cover the needle-like foliage, carpeting the garden in vibrant pink, purple, and violet-red blooms.
Moss phlox is perfect for edging woodland gardens and stone paths.
SunPatiens
These are not your typicalimpatiens.
Credit:Getty Images
SunPatiens are also the first impatiens to tolerate full sun as well as high heat and humidity.
Plant them in clumps around the patio or use them to line paths and walkways.
The foliage is not susceptible to downy mildew, a common problem among impatiens.
Credit:Getty Images
The bi-color blooms pair dark and light shades of lavender, blue, pink, purple, and white.
Phenomenal Lavender
There is something romantic about a walkway lined withlavender.
The silvery foliage is meant to be brushed against, releasing its floral perfume.
Credit:Southern Living Plant Collection
And the countless spikes of purple-blue flowers are alive with pollinators.
The hybrid Phenomenal tolerates heat and humidity, making it easier to grow in southern gardens.
Plants must have excellent drainage.
Credit:Getty Images
Use them to edge a raised bed or terrace wall.
Big Series Begonia
Begoniasare a staple among annual bedding plants.
Big begonias also tolerate hot and humid summers.
Credit:Getty Images
Varieties with white, pink, red, or rose blooms are available, some with bronze-tinged foliage.
These begonias perform best in sun-dappled shade and are perfect for edging shady walkways.
Bronze-leafed varieties tolerate more sun.
Credit:Getty Images
Milly RockTM Yarrow
Looking for a tough plant to edge that challenging area of the garden?
This native cultivar of common yarrow fits the bill.
Plants thrive in dry, lean soils and tolerate heat, humidity, and drought.
Credit:Getty Images
And they look great while doing so.
An abundance of blooms draws scores of butterflies, bees, and other beneficial insects to the garden.
Soft, silvery foliage grows in sprawling mounds that look fabulous scrambling over rock-lined edges.
Credit:Getty Images
Heat-loving and virtually pest free, dwarf morning glory is a tender perennial typically grown as an annual.
Plants form a dense tuft of stiff grass-like foliage.
Easy to grow and perfect for edging flagstone walkways, provide sea thrift with good drainage and loose soil.
Credit:Getty Images
Daylily
With gracefully arching foliage, daylilies add texture and movement to garden borders and pathways.
Plants are drought, heat, and salt tolerant, making them widely adaptable to gardens across the south.
Many newer varieties provide season-long blooms when deadheaded.
Credit:Getty Images
Everyone has a favorite varietyincludingthe hummingbirds!
Shorter varieties are perfect for the front of borders and edging paths and patios.
Plants perform best with light afternoon shade and even moisture.
Plants benefit from afternoon shade in warm climates, making them perfect for edging woodland paths.
Stonecrop
Stonecrop is a dependable perennial that tolerates heat, drought, and poor soil.
Upright varieties work well at the front edge of sunny beds.
The pink, lavender, or burgundy blooms, depending on the variety, are a favorite of butterflies.
