Plants you can plant and forget about to keep stocked at your IGC

Putnam — who has a relationship with Plant Development Services, Inc. and said his videos are "for plant nerds mostly" — said the following 12 plants are "some tough ornamental plants."

"They'll come up, bloom like normally, and then they'll continue to bloom throughout the summer. Several different colors in this series," Putnam said. "The series is called Ever because they repeat bloom. I think they should be called bumblebee butts, because all you see is the back of bumblebees on every flower, which is kind of funny to see because they’re tiny little flowers — each of these flowers individually is tiny — and they try to dig their way in there.”

“It's a variegated Encore Azalea," Putnam said. "All of our old evergreen variegated azaleas, the variation’s all over the place. You might have nine different variations on the same plant, or it reverts back to green. These are just clones of one another. It's amazing."

Putnam said this plant is "for those of you who don't want a 75 foot tall Green Giant...it's still fast growing."

‘Sterling Moon’ Lunar Lights Begonia

© Emily Mills (original photo from Jim Putnam)

Ideal for part shade perennial borders; puckered, forest-green leaves are frosted with silver and mint-green flecking; the salmon-pink flowers play nicely with pink highlighting on new leaves. Perennial in zones 7-9 or plant in containers in colder zones. Mature size 24-30 inches high and wide. Part shade.

Bayou Bliss Distylium

© Emily Mills (original photo from Jim Putnam)

Blue-green cascading foliage on a pest and disease resistant, low water evergreen shrub. Compact habit. Zones 7-9. Mature size 2-3 feet high by 3-4 feet wide. Full sun.

"Doesn't burn in the sun. Most of our gold conifers cook in the sun during summertime," Putnam said. “This is truly a plant and forget it plant. It’s gold 12 months out of the year."

“This is probably one of my favorite new plants," Putnam said. “This is an upright, narrow growing gardenia.”

© Emily Mills (original photo from Jim Putnam)

"Soft Touch Holly sells in the millions every year," Putnam said. "This is an even more compact version of Soft Touch Holly."

© Emily Mills (original photo from Jim Putnam)

"Lomandras are really kind of bulletproof grass-like plants," Putnam said. "They're native to Australia. We typically think about them being out on western areas. This one holds up incredibly well...just wouldn't think about these being as hardy as they are. So I think we should be using them in the southeast as well."

© Emily Mills (original photo from Jim Putnam)

"It's incredibly fragrant," Putnam said. "It's a spring blooming shrub that happens to continue to have one, two, three flowers on it the rest of the season." 

© Emily Mills (original photo from Jim Putnam)