Flowers That Go With Succulents

Annuals

• Low-growing annual native wildflowers give bright color in spring when rainfall helps to water them. Leave them in place long enough to reseed before you clean them up, guaranteeing their presence again next year. Some candidates are golden California poppy (Eschscholtzia californica), soft blue baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii), yellow-and-white tidy tips (Layia platyglossa) and deep blue desert bluebells (Phacelia campanulata). Taller annuals include red flax (Linum grandiflorum rubrum), blue bonnets (Lupinus spp.) and farewell to spring (Clarkia amoena), available with pink, peach, lavender and white blooms.

Ground Covers

• Perennial ground covers help prevent weeds and give continuity to open spaces between larger succulent plants. Consider moss verbena (Verbena tenuisecta), a fine-leaved plant growing 6 to 12 inches high and 3 to 6 feet wide in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 8 through 10. Clusters of lavender or white flowers appear spring through fall. Creeping thyme (Thymus spp.) is slow-growing with fragrant foliage varying from deep green to gray and with white, pink, lavender or red flowers, and hardy in USDA zones 2 through 10, depending on the species.

Medium-Height Perennials

• Bring in butterflies by planting black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia spp.) and blanket flower (Gaillardia spp.), respectively hardy to USDA zones 2 through 11 and zones 3 through 11. Both grow to about 24 inches tall. Lavender (Lavandula spp.), like succulents, needs excellent drainage and is also drought-tolerant once established. Flower colors range from pink to lavender and purple. Most species are hardy to USDA zones 8 through 11, although some may tolerate zone 4 with protection. Gayfeather (Liatris spp.) provides clumps of grassy foliage and long-lasting spikes of showy rose, purple, lavender or white flowers in summer and fall. Native to much of the U.S., gayfeather is hardy in USDA zones 3 through 9.

Tall Perennials

• Penstemons (Penstemon spp.) are native American wildflowers that come in a wide range of flower colors and forms. Their growing requirements mesh well with those of succulent plants. Taller species persist as perennial rosettes of leaves that send up tall flower stalks in summer. Palmer's penstemon (Penstemon palmeri), growing in USDA zones 4a through 9b, has large pink flowers on 36-inch-tall stalks. Also growing to 3 feet tall, "Jingle Bells" (Penstemon barbatus "Jingle Bells") has tubular red flowers that attract hummingbirds and grows in USDA zones 4 through 9. Gaura (Gaura lindheimeri) is a low-care perennial native to the Southern U.S. Needing little maintenance, clumps of lance-shaped leaves send up wiry flower stalks to 4 feet tall that bear 1-inch-wide white to pink flowers from spring to fall. Gaura is hardy in USDA zones 5 through 11.