Best Plants for Pool Landscaping

The best plants for pool landscaping are plants that provide beauty, blossoms, fragrance and attract birds and bees. Your pool landscaping plants can add to your enjoyment when you are out by the pool. Our guests enjoy our pool landscaping as well as our pool. We try to have something colorful blossoming through out the summer.

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Our yard is best known for our beautiful hydrangeas.

We have pink, blue, purple and lime green blossoms.

The Nikko blues start blossoming in May and the Pee Gee Limelights start their show in mid-July.

Not only do they provide colorful landscaping, but the blossoms make the most beautiful floral arrangements as well.

These beauties are easy to maintain. Some years I fertilize them and other years I don't.  

What they love best is lots of water and some shade to protect them from the harsh sun.

Best Plants for Pool Landscaping with Perennials

We prefer the low maintenance of perennials rather than planting annuals every spring.

Starting with our pink peonies in April followed by our yellow Stella de Ora day lillies in May and red hibiscus in June.

These plants faithfully come up every year. Many of them can be divided and added to other areas around the pool.

We make beautiful bouquets of peonies and hydrangeas to use as centerpieces for our enjoyment and when we are entertaining.

Daylilies are another favorite pool landscaping plant.  Inside the pool fence they are protected from becoming dinner for our local deer.

These perennials come in a variety of colors and depending on the plant can blossom at different times in the spring and summer.  However, just the plant name suggests, each blossom lasts for only a day.

Salvia pratensis ‘Indigo’ also known as Meadow Sage is a wonderful repeat performer.  It also likes full sun and tolerates the heat.  Hummingbirds and butterflies are attracted to these tall purple blossoms.

Nikko Blue Hydrangeas are just one of the many different hydrangeas growing in our yard.  We keep these inside the pool fence because the deer love to feast on them. 

They like early morning sun and shade in the afternoon. 

Living in the southeast, these perennials bloom around the end of May.

I can't get enough of these Pee Gee limelight hydrangeas.  When all of my other hydrangeas have finished blooming these plants show up with lime green blossoms that turn to white and then fades to shades of pink.

The blossoms are so perfect looking - no blemishes, no brown spots - just beautiful petals of white. 

Pink coneflowers are a perennial that not only come up every spring, but unlike many other perennials they blossom all summer.  These plants make for great cut flowers for bouquets.

The latest addition to providing color to our garden is a new favorite perennial called agapanthus or Lily of the Nile.  

It comes in two different sizes - this is the larger one.  There is a smaller variety as well.  The blossoms last for many days and provide such a burst of color. Purple, white and a varied white and purple are some of your color choices. 

White Fragrant Gardenias

This smaller variety of gardenia is called Radicans.  Because it is slow growing it doesn't require much pruning.

 It only reaches 24 to 36 inches in height.  The smaller flowers are about 2-3".  Gardenia Radicans is blooms later than the larger varieties and gives off a sweet romantic fragrance.

Landscaping Ideas for Pool Areas with Early Spring Color

We had a professional landscaper draw up a landscape plan when we first put in our swimming pool and we planted many of the bushes that he recommended. 

We've planted dark pink spring blooming azaleas around the pool fence that give us quite a show of color in early spring. 

There are many different varieties of azaleas, such as the Encore azaleas that blossom again in late summer.

This April blooming viburnum (in Georgia), also known as a snowball bush, provides lots of shades of white and pale lime green flowers, making it a great bush to have for cut flowers in the house. 

Best Plants for Pool Landscaping for Privacy

Include color on the pool fence by planting vines that blossom through the summer.

Flowering vines, like mandavilla, clematis or jasmine also bring color to the pool area - but with little maintenance. Two years ago we planted a new wisteria that hopefully will blossom this year.

Mandavilla vines come in a variety of colors - white, pink, yellow and red. They only last for the summer - but they also blossom all spring, summer and fall until it frosts. 

Our favorite is the red Giant Crimson Mandavilla.

They are annuals and need to be replaced every year - but the continual buds make them worth the extra expense.

Clematis vines also come in a variety of colors and sizes.  This Jackmanii clematis comes back strong every year giving us a show of purple blossoms all over our pool fence.

Large white Henryi clematis grace our fence around the end of May.  The blossoms are large and provide a big burst of color.

Confederate Jasmine cover one side of our pool fence.  In June the fragrance of this small white blossoms pervade the pool area. 

Landscaping Ideas for Pool Areas with Drought and Heat Resistant Plants

Lantana have always had a place around our pool. Living in the southeast we use plants that love the sun and heat. These plants even like drought.

Depending on how severe the winter is, they may or may not come back for another season.

Plants that will blossom all summer are the best - and Lantana do just that. They grow fast and are soon draping over the stone wall by the pool providing a fresh burst of color all summer long.

Yarrow is another drought tolerant perennial that comes in pink, red, yellow or white.  We love it because it blossoms from spring through the fall and is deer resistant.

Best Plants for Pool Landscaping that Attract Birds and Butterflies

Our pool will never be without zinnias again. I planted several packets of seeds around the pool and we have flowers in every color of the rainbow from orange and yellow to pink and purple.

Zinnias blossom all summer long giving lots of bright color.

There is always a fresh bouquet of flowers in my kitchen and as I look out to the pool I often see hummingbirds and yellow finches enjoying them too.

Landscaping Ideas for Pool Areas with Tropical Plants

Tropical plants like hibiscus bloom all summer.  The large beautiful petals put on quite a show.

Colors range from pink and red to yellow and peach.

 They can be planted in the ground - where they don't dry out quite as quickly or in a pot.

These plants only last for the summer unless you bring them inside for the winter.

Fall Landscaping Ideas for Pool Areas

We have planted pink camellia sasanqua bushes along our pool fence for privacy and for fall color. They blossom from mid-October-January.

These low maintenance plants require trimming once a year and fertilizer shortly after they have finished blossoming.

Fertilizer for Blooming Plants

We use several plant foods to help foster more and larger blooms. 

Miracle-Gro Bloom Booster Flower Food is applied by mixing  1 tablespoon of Miracle-Gro for every gallon of water. 

Miracle Grow Bloom Booster

I've been using Bill's organic bloom fertilizer called Spray-N-Grow for several years.   

I love how simple it is - mix with water and simply spray it onto your plant leaves.  No sprinkling dry granules around the base of the plant and then scratching the ground to move leaves, pine straw or mulch to make sure they absorb into the soil.  

My husband commented several times how much bigger, better and more prolific our garden blooms were last summer - and I know it wasn't because of better weather or more rain. 

In the spring we sprinkle Osmocote Smart-Release Plant Food Plus around our plants - especially perennials that will be blossoming May - like our daylilies, hydrangeas, and peonies.

Landscaping your pool with colorful plants that blossom throughout the summer can be easy and rewarding.

Sprinkle some Miracle Gro Shake'n Feed all purpose fertilizer as an all purpose plant food.  It contains natural ingredients like earthworm castings, bone meal and kelp.  It's a nice way to amend and enrich your soil for healthier plants. 

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