Underrated Plants – 8 Overlooked Garden Gems Experts Say Deserve A Spot In Every Yard
You'll wish you started to grow these plants sooner
Underrated plants are easy to overlook when designing a yard, but as experts reveal, they’re often some of the most hardworking, low-maintenance and wildlife-friendly choices you can grow.
Frequently dismissed as weeds or unfashionable, these varieties can play a vital role in supporting pollinators, improving soil and adding quiet beauty to a scheme. By taking a fresh look at these undervalued plants, it becomes clear just how much they can enrich a plot – offering nectar and pollen, seeds and shelter, as well as boosting soil health.
Article continues below1. Wallflower
Erysimum, or wallflower, is a long-flowering perennial that brings reliable colour, fragrance and resilience to the garden.
It performs particularly well in poorer, sandy soils where many other plants struggle, and its extended blooming season – often from spring right through to the first frosts – makes it a valuable choice for sustained interest.
This lilac wallflower from Proven Winners is hardy in zones 6-8, and would make a striking alternative to lavender.
Well suited to borders, containers and key focal points, its upright, bushy habit adds structure while its richly coloured flowers create a shifting display of warm, warm-toned blooms.
Rachel Bull, Head of Gardens at Homes & Gardens, says wallflowers carry the most beautiful scent, which is often overlooked. 'They have a subtle fragrance that adds another layer of appeal, but most people don't realise it,' she says. 'These plants are also magnets for bees, and have a prized place in my pollinator garden.'
Highly heat tolerant and ideal for sunny beds, wallflower is also one of the better choices for pots in full sun. Once established, it is low-maintenance, needing little more than occasional deadheading to keep the display going for longer.
You can also find great value wallflower seeds at Amazon.
2. Fleabane
Erigeron, commonly known as fleabane, is a hardworking yet often overlooked perennial that brings delicate beauty, extended blooms, and incredible ecological benefits to the garden.
Hardy in zones 5-8, many species are drought-tolerant once established, making them an excellent choice for xeriscaping, rock gardens, and pollinator-friendly plantings. It pairs beautifully with penstemon, bee balm, and agastache, serving as a key nectar source for bees and butterflies.
Fleabane is very easy to grow from seed (available at Amazon), and once established in the perfect spot you will wonder how you have ever been without it.
One of Erigeron’s greatest strengths is its long flowering season, often blooming from spring through fall with minimal maintenance. While it looks delicate, Erigeron is surprisingly tough and adaptable, thriving in well-draining soil and handling full sun to partial shade.
3. Dandelions
Dandelions are among the most undervalued plants in the garden, despite supporting more than 50 different insect species.
Often dismissed as weeds and quickly removed from lawns, borders and paving, they rarely get the chance to flower fully or release their distinctive parachuted seeds.
From March through to October, their dense golden blooms provide a vital early and late-season nectar source for bees, flies, moths and wasps. In turn, these pollinators help support wider garden wildlife, attracting birds, mammals and amphibians and boosting biodiversity in the garden.
Remarkably adaptable, dandelions require no care to thrive. Their deep tap roots help break up compacted soil and draw nutrients closer to the surface, benefiting nearby plants.
The seeds are also a food source for birds such as finches and sparrows, while the leaves are edible and rich in nutrients including magnesium, iron and calcium.
4. Eastern Bluestar
Seriously dazzling, with ice blue blooms emerging from mysteriously dark buds, it’s hard to know why Eastern Bluestar or Amsonia is only just becoming popular with gardeners.
Eastern Bluestar is so easy to grow from seed, available from Amazon, and bees love gathering its abundant nectar.
Undemanding and happy in most types of soil, these clump-forming perennials brighten up problematic shady spots in the yard with their icy tones.
‘Hardworking Amsonia is a North American native that deserves more love in the perennial garden,’ says horticulturalist Justin Hancock.
‘An easy-care plant it shows off just the loveliest clusters of star-shaped blue flowers in late spring before the leaves turn gold in fall. It’s also great for pollinators, deer- and rabbit-resistant.’
5. Toad Lily
Seldom seen in planting schemes, toad lily (Tricyrtis hirta) is a hardworking perennial from Japan that more than earns its place in the garden as a shade-loving plant with unique form.
Flowering from August to October, it produces intricate, star-shaped blooms along elegant, arching stems that can reach around 60cm, bringing much-needed late season interest.
Set against a backdrop of large, ribbed green leaves, these plants add both texture and impact to shaded borders. Their ability to thrive in lower light makes them especially valuable, offering colour at a time of year when shade-loving options can be limited.
‘It can be challenging to find shade-loving plants that bloom in summer and fall, so I’m surprised that toad lily hasn’t caught on and become more popular,’ Justin continues.
‘They’re totally underrated gems for their bloom time and beauty - the star-shaped flowers mainly appear in shades of pink, white, and purple. Some have variegated foliage for multiple seasons of interest.’
6. False Indigo
A plant of many names – baptisia, wild indigo, false indigo to name a few – is an unsung member of the pea family. A North American native perennial it shows off flower spikes of blue, purple, white, or yellow flowers in late spring and early summer.
Set against gorgeous soft blue-green foliage it offers a long lasting colorful display for next to no fuss or upkeep.
‘This plant has become more popular in recent years thanks to the new varieties that have come out, but it’s still largely unknown by so many gardeners and that’s such a shame because it’s so easy to grow,’ exclaims Justin.
‘It’s incredibly heat and drought tolerant - so once it’s established, you don’t really need to do anything but sit back and enjoy this no-fuss perennial for year and years to come.’
7. Mind Your Own Business
Baby tears or Soleirolia soleirolii is one of those understated ground cover plants you only really notice if it’s no longer there.
'Creating lush, frothy carpets of tiny leaves, mind your own business does an amazing job of seamlessly blurring different surfaces, awkward corners and forgotten spots between steps, paving and around pond edges,' says Rachel Bull. 'It really is the most incredibly helpful plant, and it gets so little recognition.'
An evergreen, perennial preferring damp shady spots, it grows quickly forming dense mats of foliage, but besides its quiet good looks, this plant plays an important role supporting nature.
Forming low growing ground cover, Mind-your-own-business provides shelter for invaluable invertebrates. Earwigs, pillbugs, spiders plus ground and predatory beetles are just some of the species who thrive and hunt beneath the canopy of this plant.
Helping to form a beneficial ecosystem, these tiny garden visitors process and recycle the garden’s natural debris, enriching the soil, plus, in turn, providing food for larger garden birds and mammals.
Sort after varieties of Soleirolia soleirolii include golden leaved ‘Aurea’, ‘Variegata’ with its mix of cream and apple green leaves and ‘Argentea’ known for its silvery foliage.
For the most vibrant display Soleirolia soleirolii ‘Aladatase’ is your best option. Soleirolia soleirolii plants are available from Walmart.
Justin Hancock is a Costa Farms horticulturist with over 25 years in the industry. A plant enthusiast and educator, he has a degree in horticultural science and has worked in garden centers and botanical gardens, as a garden designer, and in garden publishing (including at Better Homes and Gardens). He has experience gardening across the country, from Minnesota to Miami to Oregon. Justin is also co-host of the Costa Farms podcast Plant Rx.
9. Creeping Thyme
Yes, its adored for its beautiful blooms and fragrant foliage, but did you know creeping thyme or Thymus serphyllum is also a time saver and life giver too.
‘Thyme works all year-round filling cracks between flagstones and eroding rock walls. Often evergreen, weed suppressing, and sometimes sweetly scent the air as you step on them, these are the thankless heroes of my garden,’ says Horticultural Manager Lauren Carvalho.
Flowering from late spring through to late summer, these pink-purple blooms are hugely attractive to pollinators including bees, butterflies and hoverflies.
A valuable food source, growing this plant as a walkable patch of lawn or within large areas of paving can boost your local area’s biodiversity. There are many more reasons to growing a red creeping thyme lawn, which we cover in detail in our guide.
‘Thymus serphyllum ‘Reiter’ is an impressive and underrated groundcover that rapidly fills in where other plants won’t grow,’ says Lauren.
‘Extremely cold hardy, it also blooms profusely during the hottest parts of summer.’
If you can't find creeping thyme, beautiful creeping phlox plants are available from Fast Growing Trees, and are very similar in color and coverage.
Lauren is the Horticultural Manager for High Country Gardens. Beginning as an organic produce farmer in the Southwest, she developed a fascination with reducing the use of pesticides through using beneficial insects. Currently, Lauren is working with High Country Gardens and some of the brightest thought leaders in Western Horticulture, to learn about and tell the story of these incredibly important ecologically restorative and beautiful plants.
If you're inspired to rethink your planting choices, or just want to make some small changes that will make a significant difference, you might like to know about these easy design tweaks to make your garden look like a professional styled it.
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