Full Sun Rock Garden Plants

Succulents

• Succulent plants are ideal for sunny rock gardens that, for many succulents, are similar to the plant's native environment. These thick, juicy plants store water, thrive in hot sun and need minimal care but offer interest and texture to your rock garden. All sizes of cacti, aloe vera, hen and chicks, algave, yucca and sedum can be found growing in a sunny rock garden. Ice plant, a favorite succulent in a rock garden, will spread and cascade over rocks and ledges with bright pink daisyike flowers.

Ornamental Grasses

• From short growing ornamentals grasses to elegant tall reed types, adding grasses to your rock garden gives visual softness and a variety of texture. Many ornamental grasses bloom with long stems topped with a plume, or featherlike flower, like pennisetum, pampas and plume. Other ornamental grasses appeal lies in their foliage color. Sinensis varieties turn vibrant yellow to orange in the fall, while virgatum offers blue to blue-grey hues. Indian grass starts out blue-grey but turns orange to purple in autumn.

Wildflowers

• Planting wildflowers in your sunny rock garden, especially those that are native to your region, can add low-maintenance bursts of ongoing and changing color. Wildflower seed mixes for sunny areas, containing California, Shirley and red poppies, feverfew, meadow buttercup, cornflower, rock rose, clovers, black-eyed Susans and sunflowers, are readily available and will easily grow in your rock garden, adding color and interest. Using a wildflower seed mix instead of sowing seeds for individual plants will yield wildflowers that bloom at different times throughout the growing season for an ever changing appearance to the rock garden. Sow the seeds in the fall, when wildflowers in their natural environment would disperse their seeds, for blooming plants next season.

Perennials

• Growing hardy perennials in your sunny rock garden is more practical than using annual plants because once established, perennials will thrive from year to year. Yarrow, bellflower, lavender and penstemon are colorful with a long bloom time and grow 12 inches or taller. Shorter perennial plants that thrive in sunny locations are thyme varieties, snow carpet, mat daisy, aster, sedum, soapwort, candytuft, rock cress and pussytoes. Many of the shorter perennial flowering plants, like rock cress, will spread and cascade over rocks for an attractive carpet affect.